I only learned this over the weekend, but joining NATO is apparently part of the Ukrainian constitution. That means Ukrainian officials have no option but to sustain their commitment to joining and so if we’re going to use the denial of that as a way to deescalate the situation those statements would really have to come from NATO itself. The problem with that is that there is no real way to do that without either throwing Ukraine under the bus or failing to appease Putin (retaining a path for Ukraine’s later admission would really do nothing to solve the problem).
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For what it’s worth coming from a neutral country, diplomats here don’t believe that Russia will take that last step (full invasion). They say that they have nothing to gain from it, apart from a lot of dead and injured people on both sides, huge economic sanctions from the Western nations, and a lot of insecurity going forward.
Contrarily to what has been said, this situation isn’t a win-win for Putin. He can lose a lot here, including his current popularity among many Russian people. How do you think people in Russia will react if their daily lives are impacted by a big war effort to sustain, and ongoing economic sanctions? They could start coming down on Uncle Wladimir and asking questions out of him like never before.
So, again: what have Russia to win here to go to war? Nothing. That’s why they won’t do it imo. They’ll maintain their troops for a while yet, and put pressure on Ukraine, in the hope that some of their complaints and demands will be heard and respected on a diplomatic level.
I can only imagine war unfolding if they are pushed into it by the US playing deaf ears, or Ukraine provoking them by military actions (as has been said above, they’d be crazy to do that, so they’ll probably use as much restraint as possible, fingers crossed for them).
But the current hysteria, fuelled by some US and UK media, isn’t helpful at all imo. What is needed is calm and levelheaded diplomacy between the countries. Some big European countries have a role to play now: France, Germany, possibly others in order to intercede and let diplomacy resolve the issues.
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If they annex the two regions of Ukraine, what’s the international response?
I think it’s pretty straight forward. Russia lost standing as a result of the break up of the Soviet Union. This was both tangible in terms of the territory Moscow lost control of, but also a more abstract thing in terms of the way the other world powers responded to them in the 10-15 years afterwards. Putin’s entire time in power has been about restoring the importance of the Russian Empire. Until now that really hasnt been focused on restoring geographic boundaries to those they saw under the Empire, but more in resetting the way countries have to deal with them. However once key states like Ukraine become Eurocized some of that power and influence is gone for ever.
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what i see is the bullshit which the US is known for… sorry… but i don’t ever want to see how they’ve invented a pretext on invading iraq… and they feel they can be trusted
He either looses it little by little or gambles and risks a few losses for the potential bigger payoff.
Already it’s pretty clear that even if he doesn’t go to war, he can still say, “we showed them and made them back down” - whatever the actual outcome and agreements are behind closed doors or indeed officially.
If he goes to war, likely using a false flag pretence, by grabbing a bit of land, he can say the same thing but with a bigger blowhorn.
Either way the Baltics have been warned, as well as any other state looking for new alliances…
High stakes poker. Who’s going to blink first…
it’s like this , US and their allies and cronies NATO have been responsible for more shit running around the world than what Russia has done…
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Some criticism and grandstanding in public , but in private a sense of quiet relief I would imagine.
For people to feel outraged when Tony Blair lied about nuclear weapons being in Iraq , that says a lot
Lord Blair, thank-you very much!
oh yeah , the gift that keeps on giving
The accusations of “lies” surrounding WMDs in Iraq is revisionist. Multiple intelligence agencies from multiple countries had credible evidence to support the existence of WMDs in Iraq at the time. The pretext was flimsy because they perceived the threat to be imminent, when it likely wasn’t. The US were angling for a reason to oust Saddam in a vain attempt to stabilize the region and install allies who could aid in their fight against Islamic Fundamentalist forces. In the end, they fucked it up, but claiming that Bush and Blair “lied” about WMDs is false. They weren’t the only ones touting that line at the time.
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Both accurate, and also not relevant to the current situation. When you get caught doing something you shouldn’t, pointing your finger at someone else and saying they also did bad stuff isn’t really a defense. It’s how the US became so polarized under Trump. The right does X…and the right’s response is to shout louder that the left does Y, without ever addressing X. And X becomes irrelevant, because anytime someone says look at X, they just say but what about Y!!! (and vice vesa going the other way). So saying the US did some shady shit to invade Iraq is true, but isn’t really a pass for Russia to invade Ukraine, is it? And it also wasn’t quite as obvious. Pretty obvious. But not as bad as what Russia is trying to do right now. It’s like a clown show currently.
I think Russia will annex Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and try to provoke Ukraine further. Some forces will resist (Russian separatist forces only control about half of both of those regions)…and there is the war that ‘Ukraine started’.
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Since when is the US the adjudicator of what is right and what isn’t…
The two items missing from BoJo’s CV - presiding over a war and a hundred thousand needless deaths… oh wait, trying to check off the former as we speak and the later, well, sort of checked already! So close!
They probably weren’t lying. I think the people giving them the intelligence gave them what they thought Western leadership wanted to hear and outfitted the intelligence reports around that. The good ol CIA…
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Doesn’t wash it for me… US for all its might enabled Osama and the Mujahideen etc etc . There’s a fuck lot of shit that US has to answer for
I mean…in this situation I guess when one country is blatantly trying to bully another and take their territory and sovereignty? Ukraine is looking to the US and Europe help because they can’t resist Russia without help. I promise if Ukraine was telling the US and NATO to fuck off they would just happily see Ukraine rolled into Russia. Isn’t the case though, is it?
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But not in this thread 
The fact multiple parties sang from the same hymn sheet doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a lie. It’s likely that many allies didnt know, and likely wouldnt have cared had they known. And certainly the extent of the weakness of the evidence was known by only a few in the Bush circles, but those few knew that it was BS.
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