Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

Belaqua:
 

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I didn’t read Tolstoi’s book just yet (there many such beautiful books in my library that I’m not even sure if I will ever read even when I’m retired )

Still: Even if you were right about everything, I’m feeling sorry for Russians above anything else. Did he really need to send 200,000+ young men to die in Ukraine? Is there any type of ideology-based reasoning behind this act? Did Russians really deserve all of this?
If communism is dead and gone why is he acting like a Joseph Stalin 2.0?

- To me the man is an enigma all by itself. My theory is that he himself is nothing but a puppet or tool of the Russian Mafia + Oligarchy.
 
Quote:

“It's sad, because in most of the world if you ask which country is illegally violating borders, taking land by violence, and oppressing the natives of the occupied areas, people will of course answer "Israel." With the logistical, financial, and material assistance of the United States.
In Brooklyn this week they had an event where they were selling off stolen parts of the West Bank.”

 
- Yes the West has its double standards. Before the 1990’s Palestinian resistance was backed by Moscow and it was a left-wing, communist type of resistance. But look carefully: Do you see a strong / independent Arab Nation in Palestine right now? (Or do you see a true / sovereign Arab nation-state other than Egypt in the whole region?).
 
Personally I cannot make sense of the Palestinian issue as a whole. But still I want everyone to simply ignore Donald Trump’s comments and even some of his actions on this issue.
 
No one can live without international law. There has to be some rules and everyone needs to respect these rules. We can’t just keep acting as if we are still in the pre WWI world. We cannot fight for resources for instance (That’s what Wagner + Russia + China is doing in Africa and everybody is seeing it).
 
Also on Israel: I don’t know if I would want to live in Israel if I was a Jew. The whole thing is really messed up. But there has to be a solution to that. And that solution has to be a solution that respects international law.
 
Again: We won’t have a world as we know it without international law. Right now everyone (including Macron) is laying out strategies on how to best carry out the next four years with a completely reckless and irresponsible man at the white house.
But you are right on what you said: Yes Israel is a sovereign nations that has the right to exist but no, they cannot just ignore all rules of international law like they have been doing since the state was first established. And the West is clearly looking away and not seeing these breaches of international law. But that’s just the way Europeans are. You know in the 1990’s it was the US that intervened and stopped Serbian atrocities and genocide in the old Yugoslavia. Europeans were simply watching and condemning and talking.
 
So yes: You are absolutely right on this one.
 

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On NATO Spending:
 

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   Everyone agrees that Europe should do more for its own defense. But I still don’t like this “more guns” paradigm of our time. The spirit of the era between 1991 and 2014 (First Russian invasion of Ukraine) was a better one. During the Cold-War there was two conflicting ideologies on how the world was supposed to work. Now we are back to huge oligarchs and capitalists competing for the resources of this world and adding more fortune to their fortune with increasingly erratic political figures basically working for these minority egomaniacs.
 
    Even China is voicing its concerns on that. There has to be rules that work for everyone (that are being respected by everyone) and fewer guns.
 
    My position on that is: What’s wrong with the US providing military security to Europe (at least for a decade or so more) until Europeans can slowly adapt to the new reality and try to build some sort of unified armed force of their own?
 

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Belaqua:
 
Pro-Russian Ukrainians have mostly fled to Russia. The remaining ones have lost some 50,000 men. Everyone has lost someone in this war. Even if they were to capitulate Russians would then be in another Chechenia-kind of situation with armed resistance and stuff like that.
 
The Expansion of NATO:

 
This Kremlin narrative is an empty one. NATO is a defensive alliance. It does not attack you unless you attack it first.
 
The Kremlin is openly saying “I have my zones of influence, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, The Baltic states are in it, that’s why I don’t want any NATO in these countries”.
 
I don’t know about the promise issue. But I know that Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1991 in exchange for security guaranties from Russia itself.  
 
Here not even Anti-US left wing parties approve of this narrative.