Opinions on Ukraine

[Anomalocaris]

So what your advocating for chuck is "free the nazis!"?

No, I am advacating a big aggressive power with geopolitical reach and a large arsenal it is willing to use on its neighbors is a much more serious threat to its neighbors than any small poor local nation that does qualify as any sort of power, regardless of what makes up its governing coalition.

This is doubly true when the big power throws around the term Nazi just to justify beating up on the small country, as if the small miserable country, even if led by bonafide neo-Nazis (as opposed to Russian notion of the Nazi, which is basically anyone who advocates parts of former soviet union should not remain vassels to Russia), would have been much of a threat to anyone.

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Okay, oversimplification I'm sure, but doesn't the vast majority of Russia's interests in the Ukraine boil down to Sevastapool? Understanding why Russia seeks to gain purchase in Ukraine would seem to be the first step into understanding how to move forward?

If anyone much more versed in this (I assume there are a few of you here) could add to the list of reasons that Russia is even interested in Ukraine, I'd appreciate it.

No, I think Russia's interest in Ukraine is much more extensive than Sevastapol. The three really big ones, much more important than Sevestapol and black sea fleet, are:

1. Having Ukraine free of western surveillance assets and anti-missile asset is vital to the credibility of Russian nuclear deterrence against NATO. The main reason why the US would incite a color revolution in Ukraine is precisely to reduce the value and viability of Russia's deterrence against NATO, and this reduce Russia's ability to act as any sort of great power able to defy US will. Russians are not fools. It follows anyone who think Russia ought to retain the ability to act independently on the world stage would never permit Ukraine to possess any form of government which may either want to open the possibility for NATO gaining any sort of military foothood in Ukraine, or could be susceptible to future NATO pressure to put a military foot hold in Ukraine.

2. Russia would also want to be able to use Ukraine to protect Russia's vulnerable southern flank, so would want the ability to establish military presence there itself when it feels the need, and would like a pro-Russian Ukrainian government which would be amenable to that possibility during any moment of real crisis.

3. Ukrainian military industrial complex was a large and vital part of the former Soviet military industrial complex, and remain an important part of many military supply chain of Russia. Russia would like to Ukraine to possess the sort of government which would ensure Russia continues to have the ability to leverage these industrial infrastructrue for use in its own supply chain. It seem highly unlikely that any western sponsored Ukrainian government would long resist western, particular US, pressure to gradually shut these down.