To understand the #ukrainecrisis, four dates are very important, 1962, 1989, 2008 and 2014.

Lets begin:

(1). [/b]1962[b]
In 1962, the Soviet Union/Russia tried to install a military hardware in Cuba, which threatens US directly because Cuba border them by water. The then president of US, Kennedy threatened Russia with World War if they do not remove their military installation. The Soviet premier Nikiti Khrucshev rebuffed him which brought the world close to nuclear Armageddon, where it took 13days of negotiation, military diplomacy, death of an American military pilot, destruction of an American spy plane and the removal of American missiles from Turkey, to solve. That's what we came to know as The Cuban missile crises of 1962.

(2). [/b]1989[b]

The Berlin wall fell in 1989 and the process of the integration of the western and eastern Germany started. 1989 is really important because as the process of integration were going on, James Baker, the US secretary of state promised the Soviet union/Russia that NATO (military organization led by the Americans) will not expand one inch towards the Russian border. This promise went a long way to facilitate the unification of Germany as we know it today. This is significant because when the Soviet union fell in 1991, the US broke that promise in multiple ways by expanding NATO to the Russian borders to include countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic etc. Fastward to....

(3). [/b]2008[b]
In 2008 during NATO summit held in Romania, there was a very strange push by the then President of US, George Bush, to include Georgia and Ukraine as members of NATO (remember 1962, Georgia and Ukraine shares a land border with Russia), Germany, France and Italy rejected the idea, but the Americans forced a very aggressive line in the final communique, it says: 'Nato will not accept Georgia and Ukraine today, but they will be members someday'. Alarm bells went off in Moscow. Putin then said that including Ukraine and Georgia in NATO will be a threat to Russian security, he reminded the world of America's reaction when the Russians tried the same thing in '62. He further stated that it will emboldened them on a military adventure against Russia. This Putin's statement came true because some months later, then Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, who was emboldened by George Bush after he visited Tbilisi, fired multiple rockets towards South Ossetia, which killed six Russian soldiers who were stationed in the breakaway region. This led to war between Russia and Georgia durind the Beijing Olympics.
Russia destroyed Georgia.

(4). [/b]2014[b]
In 2013, the EU offered Ukraine a trade deal, and Russia offered Ukraine a counter trade deal (details can come later). Ukrainian President then YanuKovich, accepted the Russian trade deal saying that Ukraine and Russia has a long history of trade and it will be difficult for their companies to compete in the European market. This angered the US and they mobilized a protest against the president using the western part of Ukraine population against him, (Ukraine is an evenly divided country between east and west. the president was from the east, voted for by the people in the east, hated by the people in the west, and the capital is in the west. Imagine Buhari voted for by the northerners, hated by the southerners, and the Nigerian capital in Anambra). Imagine a protest in Ukraine where an American senator, Late John McCain, American ambassador to Ukraine, McFaul and assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, were at the centre of the protest in Maidan, Kyiv, giving them cookies and bread urging them to overthrow their democratically elected president just because they didn't accept their trade deal.

That led to the downfall of the Ukrainian President in the early months of 2014. The eastern part of Ukraine which voted mostly for the president rejected the overthrow and said they won't be part of that Ukraine, and declared independence.
It led to a situation where Crimea declared Independence from Ukraine and voted to be part of Russia, Russia accepted. Donetsk and Luhansk equally declared independence which led to a brief war with Ukraine, Russia helped them push back Ukrainian forces and the conflict was frozen, with daily skirmishes on the front lines since 2014. Putin recognized their Independence last week. Fastward.....

[/b]Today[b]
How Putin tried to avoid this war.

In a 2007 speech made by Vladimir Putin in Munich, Germany, he warned the US that bringing Ukraine into NATO will create a war in Europe because there's no way Russia will ever allow American military Machinery to Russian doorsteps just like US refused in 1962. The Americans laughed at him.

In 2016, he called the then president of France, Francois Hollande, to restructure the security architect of Europe because the US is trying to bring Ukraine into NATO and equally sign a bilateral military pact with Ukraine which will bring US military facilities to Russian borders. The French president acknowledged but did nothing. (This happened because the Obama wanted to use that bilateral military pact to punish Putin for humiliating him with his intervention in Syria to save Assad (president of Syria) whom the US wanted to overthrow.

Last year, 2021, Putin wrote the same letter of security to US and EU that Ukraine should become a non military aligned nation just like Finland but they laughed at him, Ukraine said they can do whatever they want because they are a sovereign nation.

Imagine the US response if Russia is to install military weapons in Canada and Mexico.

Towards the end of last year, Joe Biden (who wants to show that he is not Trump, whom they accused of being Putin's puppet) started supplying weapons to Ukraine, installing military equipment in the name of defending Ukraine...

... that was Putin's red line and they have crossed it.

[/b]A Criminal Comedy of Suicidal Errors[b]

[/b]WESTERN STRATEGIC THINKERS WHO HAD WARNED OF UKRAINIAN CONFLICT (a compilation by @RnaudBertrand)[b]

1. [/b]George Kennan,[b] America's foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy. As early as 1998 he warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia".

2. [/b]Kissinger, in 2014.[b] He warned that "to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country" and that the West therefore needs a policy that is aimed at "reconciliation".
He was also adamant that "Ukraine should not join NATO"

3. [/b]John Mearsheimer -[b] arguably the leading geopolitical scholar in the US today - in 2015: "The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked [...] What we're doing is in fact encouraging that outcome."

4. [/b]Jack F. Matlock Jr.,[b] US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"

5. [/b]Clinton's defense secretary William Perry[b] explained, in his memoir, that to him NATO enlargement is the cause of "the rupture in relations with Russia" and that in 1996 he was so opposed to it that "in the strength of my conviction, I considered resigning".

6. [/b]Stephen Cohen,[b] a famed scholar of Russian studies, warning in 2014 that "if we move NATO forces toward Russia's borders [...] it's obviously gonna militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back off, this is existential"

7. [/b]CIA director Bill Burns[b] in 2008: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for [Russia]" and "I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests". (He was then Ambassador to Moscow in 2008 when he wrote this memo). He is now director of the CIA. ‘08 memo ‘Nyet Means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement Redlines’

8. [/b]Russian-American journalist Vladimir Pozner[b], in 2018, stated that: NATO expansion in Ukraine is unacceptable to the Russian, that there has to be a compromise where "Ukraine, guaranteed, will not become a member of NATO."

9. [/b]Malcolm Fraser, 22nd prime minister of Australia,[b] warned in 2014 that "the move east [by NATO is] provocative, unwise and a very clear signal to Russia". He adds that this leads to a "difficult and extraordinarily dangerous problem".

10. [/b]Paul Keating,[b] former Australian PM, in 1997: expanding NATO is "an error which may rank in the end with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system [in early 20th]"

11. [/b]Former US defense secretary Bob Gates[b] in his 2015 memoirs: "Moving so quickly [to expand NATO] was a mistake. [...] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching [and] an especially monumental provocation"

12. [/b]Pat Buchanan[b], in his 1999 book A Republic, Not an Empire: "By moving NATO onto Russia's front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation."

13. [/b]In 1997, a group of individuals including Robert McNamara, Bill Bradley & Gary Hart[b] wrote a letter to Bill Clinton warning the "US led effort to expand NATO is a policy error of historic proportions" and would "foster instability" in Europe. Today it's fringe, traitorous position.

14. [/b]Pat Buchanan,[b] in his 1999 book A Republic, Not an Empire: "By moving NATO onto Russia's front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation."

15. [/b]Dmitriy Trenin[b] expressed concern that Ukraine was, in the LT, the most potentially destabilizing factor in US-Russian relations, given the level of emotion & neuralgia triggered by its quest for NATO membership.

16. [/b]Sir Roderic Lyne,[b] former British ambassador to Russia, warned a year ago that "[pushing] Ukraine into NATO [...] is stupid on every level." He adds "if you want to start a war with Russia, that's the best way of doing it."

17. [/b]Even last year, famous economist Jeffrey Sachs[b], writing a column in the FT warning that "NATO enlargement is utterly misguided and risky. True friends of Ukraine, and of global peace, should be calling for a US and NATO compromise with Russia."

18. [/b]Fiona Hill[b] :"We warned [George Bush] that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded."

19. [/b]Aleksandr Dugin[b], in 1997, had predicted everything that Putin has done, in his book "Foundation of Geopolitics."

[/b]EVERYBODY knew that trying to rope Ukraine into NATO was crossing Russia's red line, but now people would like to hold up Russia as a villain. After having done everything to teeter on the redline. And this happened only AFTER Biden came to power.[b]

[/b]One can peruse the compilation here:
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491107902062592..[b]

You support Russia because you are a m*slem and hate the US for not negotiating with fanatics.

Thank you for the enlightenment. Alot of noise makers don't know this.

Hanks0000:
You support Russia because you are a m*slem and hate the US for not negotiating with fanatics.

No, that's not true. Russia is not an Islamic country by any standard. And US can refuse to negotiate with any one or group that threatens her national security, any country would do the same.

But America is not an all saint country, that can never do wrong. They had committed so many foreign policy blunders in the past and Ukraine is just the latest.

Read the above write up. Leave the Muslims or Christians out of this. This is pure international relations and not ethno religious politics that we are used to in Nigeria.

Hanks0000:
You support Russia because you are a m*slem and hate the US for not negotiating with fanatics.

Na hardmirror fit all of una.

Blablamalala:
Thank you for the enlightenment. Alot of noise makers don't know this.

Thank you, as graduates of International relations up to higher degrees level, we owe the non experts some of these explanations.

Thanks you boss.

Idaytesj29:


Thank you, as graduates of International relations up to higher degrees level, we owe the non experts some of these explanations.

Thanks you boss.

Are you acquainted with Prof Noam Chomsky?

@Op, may your days be long. Thank you for shedding more light on the hypocrisy of the West and the armchair analysts from Ojota who have been foaming all over Nairaland.

Blablamalala:


Are you acquainted with Prof Noam Chomsky?

Yes, to some extent

Idaytesj29:
To understand the #ukrainecrisis, four dates are very important, 1962, 1989, 2008 and 2014.

Lets begin:

(1). [/b]1962[b]
In 1962, the Soviet Union/Russia tried to install a military hardware in Cuba, which threatens US directly because Cuba border them by water. The then president of US, Kennedy threatened Russia with World War if they do not remove their military installation. The Soviet premier Nikiti Khrucshev rebuffed him which brought the world close to nuclear Armageddon, where it took 13days of negotiation, military diplomacy, death of an American military pilot, destruction of an American spy plane and the removal of American missiles from Turkey, to solve. That's what we came to know as The Cuban missile crises of 1962.

(2). [/b]1989[b]

The Berlin wall fell in 1989 and the process of the integration of the western and eastern Germany started. 1989 is really important because as the process of integration were going on, James Baker, the US secretary of state promised the Soviet union/Russia that NATO (military organization led by the Americans) will not expand one inch towards the Russian border. This promise went a long way to facilitate the unification of Germany as we know it today. This is significant because when the Soviet union fell in 1991, the US broke that promise in multiple ways by expanding NATO to the Russian borders to include countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic etc. Fastward to....

(3). [/b]2008[b]
In 2008 during NATO summit held in Romania, there was a very strange push by the then President of US, George Bush, to include Georgia and Ukraine as members of NATO (remember 1962, Georgia and Ukraine shares a land border with Russia), Germany, France and Italy rejected the idea, but the Americans forced a very aggressive line in the final communique, it says: 'Nato will not accept Georgia and Ukraine today, but they will be members someday'. Alarm bells went off in Moscow. Putin then said that including Ukraine and Georgia in NATO will be a threat to Russian security, he reminded the world of America's reaction when the Russians tried the same thing in '62. He further stated that it will emboldened them on a military adventure against Russia. This Putin's statement came true because some months later, then Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, who was emboldened by George Bush after he visited Tbilisi, fired multiple rockets towards South Ossetia, which killed six Russian soldiers who were stationed in the breakaway region. This led to war between Russia and Georgia durind the Beijing Olympics.
Russia destroyed Georgia.

(4). [/b]2014[b]
In 2013, the EU offered Ukraine a trade deal, and Russia offered Ukraine a counter trade deal (details can come later). Ukrainian President then YanuKovich, accepted the Russian trade deal saying that Ukraine and Russia has a long history of trade and it will be difficult for their companies to compete in the European market. This angered the US and they mobilized a protest against the president using the western part of Ukraine population against him, (Ukraine is an evenly divided country between east and west. the president was from the east, voted for by the people in the east, hated by the people in the west, and the capital is in the west. Imagine Buhari voted for by the northerners, hated by the southerners, and the Nigerian capital in Anambra). Imagine a protest in Ukraine where an American senator, Late John McCain, American ambassador to Ukraine, McFaul and assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, were at the centre of the protest in Maidan, Kyiv, giving them cookies and bread urging them to overthrow their democratically elected president just because they didn't accept their trade deal.

That led to the downfall of the Ukrainian President in the early months of 2014. The eastern part of Ukraine which voted mostly for the president rejected the overthrow and said they won't be part of that Ukraine, and declared independence.
It led to a situation where Crimea declared Independence from Ukraine and voted to be part of Russia, Russia accepted. Donetsk and Luhansk equally declared independence which led to a brief war with Ukraine, Russia helped them push back Ukrainian forces and the conflict was frozen, with daily skirmishes on the front lines since 2014. Putin recognized their Independence last week. Fastward.....

[/b]Today[b]
How Putin tried to avoid this war.

In a 2007 speech made by Vladimir Putin in Munich, Germany, he warned the US that bringing Ukraine into NATO will create a war in Europe because there's no way Russia will ever allow American military Machinery to Russian doorsteps just like US refused in 1962. The Americans laughed at him.

In 2016, he called the then president of France, Francois Hollande, to restructure the security architect of Europe because the US is trying to bring Ukraine into NATO and equally sign a bilateral military pact with Ukraine which will bring US military facilities to Russian borders. The French president acknowledged but did nothing. (This happened because the Obama wanted to use that bilateral military pact to punish Putin for humiliating him with his intervention in Syria to save Assad (president of Syria) whom the US wanted to overthrow.

Last year, 2021, Putin wrote the same letter of security to US and EU that Ukraine should become a non military aligned nation just like Finland but they laughed at him, Ukraine said they can do whatever they want because they are a sovereign nation.

Imagine the US response if Russia is to install military weapons in Canada and Mexico.

Towards the end of last year, Joe Biden (who wants to show that he is not Trump, whom they accused of being Putin's puppet) started supplying weapons to Ukraine, installing military equipment in the name of defending Ukraine...

... that was Putin's red line and they have crossed it.

[/b]A Criminal Comedy of Suicidal Errors[b]

[/b]WESTERN STRATEGIC THINKERS WHO HAD WARNED OF UKRAINIAN CONFLICT (a compilation by @RnaudBertrand)[b]

1. [/b]George Kennan,[b] America's foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy. As early as 1998 he warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia".

2. [/b]Kissinger, in 2014.[b] He warned that "to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country" and that the West therefore needs a policy that is aimed at "reconciliation".
He was also adamant that "Ukraine should not join NATO"

3. [/b]John Mearsheimer -[b] arguably the leading geopolitical scholar in the US today - in 2015: "The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked [...] What we're doing is in fact encouraging that outcome."

4. [/b]Jack F. Matlock Jr.,[b] US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"

5. [/b]Clinton's defense secretary William Perry[b] explained, in his memoir, that to him NATO enlargement is the cause of "the rupture in relations with Russia" and that in 1996 he was so opposed to it that "in the strength of my conviction, I considered resigning".

6. [/b]Stephen Cohen,[b] a famed scholar of Russian studies, warning in 2014 that "if we move NATO forces toward Russia's borders [...] it's obviously gonna militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back off, this is existential"

7. [/b]CIA director Bill Burns[b] in 2008: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for [Russia]" and "I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests". (He was then Ambassador to Moscow in 2008 when he wrote this memo). He is now director of the CIA. ‘08 memo ‘Nyet Means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement Redlines’

8. [/b]Russian-American journalist Vladimir Pozner[b], in 2018, stated that: NATO expansion in Ukraine is unacceptable to the Russian, that there has to be a compromise where "Ukraine, guaranteed, will not become a member of NATO."

9. [/b]Malcolm Fraser, 22nd prime minister of Australia,[b] warned in 2014 that "the move east [by NATO is] provocative, unwise and a very clear signal to Russia". He adds that this leads to a "difficult and extraordinarily dangerous problem".

10. [/b]Paul Keating,[b] former Australian PM, in 1997: expanding NATO is "an error which may rank in the end with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system [in early 20th]"

11. [/b]Former US defense secretary Bob Gates[b] in his 2015 memoirs: "Moving so quickly [to expand NATO] was a mistake. [...] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching [and] an especially monumental provocation"

12. [/b]Pat Buchanan[b], in his 1999 book A Republic, Not an Empire: "By moving NATO onto Russia's front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation."

13. [/b]In 1997, a group of individuals including Robert McNamara, Bill Bradley & Gary Hart[b] wrote a letter to Bill Clinton warning the "US led effort to expand NATO is a policy error of historic proportions" and would "foster instability" in Europe. Today it's fringe, traitorous position.

14. [/b]Pat Buchanan,[b] in his 1999 book A Republic, Not an Empire: "By moving NATO onto Russia's front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation."

15. [/b]Dmitriy Trenin[b] expressed concern that Ukraine was, in the LT, the most potentially destabilizing factor in US-Russian relations, given the level of emotion & neuralgia triggered by its quest for NATO membership.

16. [/b]Sir Roderic Lyne,[b] former British ambassador to Russia, warned a year ago that "[pushing] Ukraine into NATO [...] is stupid on every level." He adds "if you want to start a war with Russia, that's the best way of doing it."

17. [/b]Even last year, famous economist Jeffrey Sachs[b], writing a column in the FT warning that "NATO enlargement is utterly misguided and risky. True friends of Ukraine, and of global peace, should be calling for a US and NATO compromise with Russia."

18. [/b]Fiona Hill[b] :"We warned [George Bush] that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded."

19. [/b]Aleksandr Dugin[b], in 1997, had predicted everything that Putin has done, in his book "Foundation of Geopolitics."

[/b]EVERYBODY knew that trying to rope Ukraine into NATO was crossing Russia's red line, but now people would like to hold up Russia as a villain. After having done everything to teeter on the redline. And this happened only AFTER Biden came to power.[b]

[/b]One can peruse the compilation here:
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491107902062592..[b]

Nothing justifies military invasion of any country in 21st century. Russia could have waited for next Ukraine election and push for their candidate. Russia is losing her fellow Slavic people to the west because of her military tactics in solving diplomatic tissue. Russia should worry that all her neighbors are running away from her.

joyandfaith:


Nothing justifies military invasion of any country in 21st century. Russia could have waited for next Ukraine election and push for their candidate. Russia is losing her fellow Slavic people to the west because of her military tactics in solving diplomatic tissue. Russia should worry that all her neighbors are running away from her.

The US had an agreement with Russia not to extend NATO by any inch to the borders of Russia. Why did she not honorably abide by that?

Also, we did not speak of justification here when NATO led US invaded Libya, Vietnam,Iraq, the assassination of Iranian General etc.

The way we scrutinize the policy actions and criticize countries of the world, we should examine the US and her foreign policy moves the same way.

Idaytesj29:


The US had an agreement with Russia not to extend NATO by any inch to the borders of Russia. Why did she not honorably abide by that?

Also, we did not speak of justification here when NATO led US invaded Libya, Vietnam,Iraq, the assassination of Iranian General etc.

The way we are scrutinize the policy actions and criticize countries of the world, we should examine the US and her foreign policy moves the same way.

Is USA a yardstick for good or bad? Do you know that Ukraine handed her nuclear arsenals to Russia in 1993 with agreement that Russia wouldn't attack Ukraine.
Do you know that there was agreement between US and Russia that Russia wouldn't interfere with US interests in Middle East.
In 2015, Ukraine stopped buying gas from Russia due to trade dispute. The truth is that Russia has nothing to offer her neighbours because she lacks negotiation power to do so except military threat.

joyandfaith:


Nothing justifies military invasion of any country in 21st century. Russia could have waited for next Ukraine election and push for their candidate. Russia is losing her fellow Slavic people to the west because of her military tactics in solving diplomatic tissue. Russia should worry that all her neighbors are running away from her.

It is very clear, going by the UN charter, the Russian invasion is in clear violation of Article 2(4) , which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of another state.


After having established this fact using the UN charter as a yardstick. We need to examine thoroughly if there are evidences of other nations that have violated this UN article and what was the consequences this nations faced.

Do you know such countries that have invaded other countries and the consequences of their action?

For this will play a great role in making the UN a true standard for check and balance.

Can the invasion by Russia be Illegal but justifiable?

joyandfaith:

Is USA a yardstick for good or bad? Do you know that Ukraine handed her nuclear arsenals to Russia in 1993 with agreement that Russia wouldn't attack Ukraine.
Do you know that there was agreement between US and Russia that Russia wouldn't interfere with US interests in Middle East.
In 2015, Ukraine stopped buying gas from Russia due to trade dispute. The truth is that Russia has nothing to offer her neighbours because she lacks negotiation power to do so except military threat.

And the only thing US want to offer them now is the set up of military bases in Ukraine? If US had allowed USSR set up her military base in Cuba in 1962, there wouldn't be any problem. What the US did not permit in Cuba for USSR, the US want Russia to permit it for her in Ukraine. No sane country would allow that.

Hanks0000:
You support Russia because you are a m*slem and hate the US for not negotiating with fanatics.

A good way to say,I didn't read the post.

Idaytesj29:


And the only thing US want to offer them now is the set up of military bases in Ukraine? If US had allowed USSR set up her military base in Cuba in 1962, there wouldn't be any problem. What the US did not permit in Cuba for USSR, the US want Russia to permit it for her in Ukraine. No sane country would allow that.

It shouldn't be what USA or Russia want all the time!!!!! But what does Ukraine wants! Ukraine freedom & want should trump USA or Russia desire! If not for politics, this is a clear case of oppression. Funny how those who wants Biafra are now supporting Russia. If Russia was a good neighbour to Ukraine, do u think they will be romancing with West? How many of u are asking what is Russia not doing right that is making Ukraine romance with the west?
The way the average Ukrainian is willing to resist Russia should tell u Russia is forcing herself on them. The question is why do they hate Russia this much? This is isn't about the president alone, but the average Ukrainian.

Ukraine also deserve a say, it shouldn't be what Russia or US want all the time, but what does Ukraine wants! In an ideal & fair world, there should be a form of referendum if Ukraine wish to join NATO & not oppressing them against their wish. Ukrainians are humans like u & don't deserve this oppression Putin is melting on them. Put yourself in their shoes. Because US once attack Iraq is not enough reason to start justifying bigger countries oppressing smaller ones. If Ukraine was to be as equipped as USA or China, would Russia dare invade it? Put yourself in the position of Ukrainians, not US or Russia!

joyandfaith:


Nothing justifies military invasion of any country in 21st century. Russia could have waited for next Ukraine election and push for their candidate. Russia is losing her fellow Slavic people to the west because of her military tactics in solving diplomatic tissue. Russia should worry that all her neighbors are running away from her.

Was not the same tactics US used when Russia was installing military hardware in Cuba?

Idaytesj29:
To understand the #ukrainecrisis, four dates are very important, 1962, 1989, 2008 and 2014.

Lets begin:

(1). [/b]1962[b]
In 1962, the Soviet Union/Russia tried to install a military hardware in Cuba, which threatens US directly because Cuba border them by water. The then president of US, Kennedy threatened Russia with World War if they do not remove their military installation. The Soviet premier Nikiti Khrucshev rebuffed him which brought the world close to nuclear Armageddon, where it took 13days of negotiation, military diplomacy, death of an American military pilot, destruction of an American spy plane and the removal of American missiles from Turkey, to solve. That's what we came to know as The Cuban missile crises of 1962.

(2). [/b]1989[b]

The Berlin wall fell in 1989 and the process of the integration of the western and eastern Germany started. 1989 is really important because as the process of integration were going on, James Baker, the US secretary of state promised the Soviet union/Russia that NATO (military organization led by the Americans) will not expand one inch towards the Russian border. This promise went a long way to facilitate the unification of Germany as we know it today. This is significant because when the Soviet union fell in 1991, the US broke that promise in multiple ways by expanding NATO to the Russian borders to include countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic etc. Fastward to....

(3). [/b]2008[b]
In 2008 during NATO summit held in Romania, there was a very strange push by the then President of US, George Bush, to include Georgia and Ukraine as members of NATO (remember 1962, Georgia and Ukraine shares a land border with Russia), Germany, France and Italy rejected the idea, but the Americans forced a very aggressive line in the final communique, it says: 'Nato will not accept Georgia and Ukraine today, but they will be members someday'. Alarm bells went off in Moscow. Putin then said that including Ukraine and Georgia in NATO will be a threat to Russian security, he reminded the world of America's reaction when the Russians tried the same thing in '62. He further stated that it will emboldened them on a military adventure against Russia. This Putin's statement came true because some months later, then Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, who was emboldened by George Bush after he visited Tbilisi, fired multiple rockets towards South Ossetia, which killed six Russian soldiers who were stationed in the breakaway region. This led to war between Russia and Georgia durind the Beijing Olympics.
Russia destroyed Georgia.

(4). [/b]2014[b]
In 2013, the EU offered Ukraine a trade deal, and Russia offered Ukraine a counter trade deal (details can come later). Ukrainian President then YanuKovich, accepted the Russian trade deal saying that Ukraine and Russia has a long history of trade and it will be difficult for their companies to compete in the European market. This angered the US and they mobilized a protest against the president using the western part of Ukraine population against him, (Ukraine is an evenly divided country between east and west. the president was from the east, voted for by the people in the east, hated by the people in the west, and the capital is in the west. Imagine Buhari voted for by the northerners, hated by the southerners, and the Nigerian capital in Anambra). Imagine a protest in Ukraine where an American senator, Late John McCain, American ambassador to Ukraine, McFaul and assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, were at the centre of the protest in Maidan, Kyiv, giving them cookies and bread urging them to overthrow their democratically elected president just because they didn't accept their trade deal.

That led to the downfall of the Ukrainian President in the early months of 2014. The eastern part of Ukraine which voted mostly for the president rejected the overthrow and said they won't be part of that Ukraine, and declared independence.
It led to a situation where Crimea declared Independence from Ukraine and voted to be part of Russia, Russia accepted. Donetsk and Luhansk equally declared independence which led to a brief war with Ukraine, Russia helped them push back Ukrainian forces and the conflict was frozen, with daily skirmishes on the front lines since 2014. Putin recognized their Independence last week. Fastward.....

[/b]Today[b]
How Putin tried to avoid this war.

In a 2007 speech made by Vladimir Putin in Munich, Germany, he warned the US that bringing Ukraine into NATO will create a war in Europe because there's no way Russia will ever allow American military Machinery to Russian doorsteps just like US refused in 1962. The Americans laughed at him.

In 2016, he called the then president of France, Francois Hollande, to restructure the security architect of Europe because the US is trying to bring Ukraine into NATO and equally sign a bilateral military pact with Ukraine which will bring US military facilities to Russian borders. The French president acknowledged but did nothing. (This happened because the Obama wanted to use that bilateral military pact to punish Putin for humiliating him with his intervention in Syria to save Assad (president of Syria) whom the US wanted to overthrow.

Last year, 2021, Putin wrote the same letter of security to US and EU that Ukraine should become a non military aligned nation just like Finland but they laughed at him, Ukraine said they can do whatever they want because they are a sovereign nation.

Imagine the US response if Russia is to install military weapons in Canada and Mexico.

Towards the end of last year, Joe Biden (who wants to show that he is not Trump, whom they accused of being Putin's puppet) started supplying weapons to Ukraine, installing military equipment in the name of defending Ukraine...

... that was Putin's red line and they have crossed it.

[/b]A Criminal Comedy of Suicidal Errors[b]

[/b]WESTERN STRATEGIC THINKERS WHO HAD WARNED OF UKRAINIAN CONFLICT (a compilation by @RnaudBertrand)[b]

1. [/b]George Kennan,[b] America's foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy. As early as 1998 he warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia".

2. [/b]Kissinger, in 2014.[b] He warned that "to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country" and that the West therefore needs a policy that is aimed at "reconciliation".
He was also adamant that "Ukraine should not join NATO"

3. [/b]John Mearsheimer -[b] arguably the leading geopolitical scholar in the US today - in 2015: "The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked [...] What we're doing is in fact encouraging that outcome."

4. [/b]Jack F. Matlock Jr.,[b] US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"

5. [/b]Clinton's defense secretary William Perry[b] explained, in his memoir, that to him NATO enlargement is the cause of "the rupture in relations with Russia" and that in 1996 he was so opposed to it that "in the strength of my conviction, I considered resigning".

6. [/b]Stephen Cohen,[b] a famed scholar of Russian studies, warning in 2014 that "if we move NATO forces toward Russia's borders [...] it's obviously gonna militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back off, this is existential"

7. [/b]CIA director Bill Burns[b] in 2008: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for [Russia]" and "I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests". (He was then Ambassador to Moscow in 2008 when he wrote this memo). He is now director of the CIA. ‘08 memo ‘Nyet Means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement Redlines’

8. [/b]Russian-American journalist Vladimir Pozner[b], in 2018, stated that: NATO expansion in Ukraine is unacceptable to the Russian, that there has to be a compromise where "Ukraine, guaranteed, will not become a member of NATO."

9. [/b]Malcolm Fraser, 22nd prime minister of Australia,[b] warned in 2014 that "the move east [by NATO is] provocative, unwise and a very clear signal to Russia". He adds that this leads to a "difficult and extraordinarily dangerous problem".

10. [/b]Paul Keating,[b] former Australian PM, in 1997: expanding NATO is "an error which may rank in the end with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system [in early 20th]"

11. [/b]Former US defense secretary Bob Gates[b] in his 2015 memoirs: "Moving so quickly [to expand NATO] was a mistake. [...] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching [and] an especially monumental provocation"

12. [/b]Pat Buchanan[b], in his 1999 book A Republic, Not an Empire: "By moving NATO onto Russia's front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation."

13. [/b]In 1997, a group of individuals including Robert McNamara, Bill Bradley & Gary Hart[b] wrote a letter to Bill Clinton warning the "US led effort to expand NATO is a policy error of historic proportions" and would "foster instability" in Europe. Today it's fringe, traitorous position.

14. [/b]Pat Buchanan,[b] in his 1999 book A Republic, Not an Empire: "By moving NATO onto Russia's front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation."

15. [/b]Dmitriy Trenin[b] expressed concern that Ukraine was, in the LT, the most potentially destabilizing factor in US-Russian relations, given the level of emotion & neuralgia triggered by its quest for NATO membership.

16. [/b]Sir Roderic Lyne,[b] former British ambassador to Russia, warned a year ago that "[pushing] Ukraine into NATO [...] is stupid on every level." He adds "if you want to start a war with Russia, that's the best way of doing it."

17. [/b]Even last year, famous economist Jeffrey Sachs[b], writing a column in the FT warning that "NATO enlargement is utterly misguided and risky. True friends of Ukraine, and of global peace, should be calling for a US and NATO compromise with Russia."

18. [/b]Fiona Hill[b] :"We warned [George Bush] that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded."

19. [/b]Aleksandr Dugin[b], in 1997, had predicted everything that Putin has done, in his book "Foundation of Geopolitics."

[/b]EVERYBODY knew that trying to rope Ukraine into NATO was crossing Russia's red line, but now people would like to hold up Russia as a villain. After having done everything to teeter on the redline. And this happened only AFTER Biden came to power.[b]

[/b]One can peruse the compilation here:
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491107902062592..[b]

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You are not standing with Russia but the mad man, Putin.
Even Russians have all disassociated themselves from the lunatic, so plz instead of writing all this epistles of nonsense go tell that lunatic to conduct a free open and fair election in Russia and see if even a dog will vote for him
If Goberchev and Yeltsin had hold on like the way he is doing would he have been President?
Tell the fool his days are numbered and in the hands of fellow Russians will he meet his downfall

KingOKON:
.

You are not standing with Russia but the mad man, Putin.
Even Russians have all disassociated themselves from the lunatic, so plz instead of writing all this epistles of nonsense go tell that lunatic to conduct a free open and fair election in Russia and see if even a dog will vote for him
If Goberchev and Yeltsin had hold on like the way he is doing would he have been President?
Tell the fool his days are numbered and in the hands of fellow Russians will he meet his downfall

Wow! You made a lot of sense. Bravo! You are the wisest and the most peaceful man ever. Keep it up.

Idaytesj29:


Wow! You made a lot of sense. Bravo! You are the wisest and the most peaceful man ever. Keep it up.

.

Ye, keeping it up with people of common sense world over

Tell that lunatic what his predecessor saw and the actions they took was generally accepted by all Russians unlike his, where him and his Mafians criminala are the ones taking decision for the entire Russians
He will end up dying like a chicken in Siberia

Help2020:

Was not the same tactics US used when Russia Soviet Union was installing military hardware in Cuba?

Did USA invade Cuba?

Idaytesj29:


And the only thing US want to offer them now is the set up of military bases in Ukraine? If US had allowed USSR set up her military base in Cuba in 1962, there wouldn't be any problem. What the US did not permit in Cuba for USSR, the US want Russia to permit it for her in Ukraine. No sane country would allow that.

Did USA invade Cuba in 1962? USA will use diplomatic means including sanctions, coup, assassination to achieve their mean before military action?

Blablamalala:


It is very clear, going by the UN charter, the Russian invasion is in clear violation of Article 2(4) , which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of another state.


After having established this fact using the UN charter as a yardstick. We need to examine thoroughly if there are evidences of other nations that have violated this UN article and what was the consequences this nations faced.

Do you know such countries that have invaded other countries and the consequences of their action?

For this will play a great role in making the UN a true standard for check and balance.

Can the invasion by Russia be Illegal but justifiable?

Nothing like legal or illegal in international politics.

joyandfaith:


Nothing like legal or illegal in international politics.

According to which school of thought?

joyandfaith:


Did USA invade Cuba in 1962? USA will use diplomatic means including sanctions, coup, assassination to achieve their mean before military action?

Coup is not peaceful neither is Assassination. Yes, there was an invasion.

The 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion by armed militias through southwest Cuba, planned and funded by the United States, in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro, who was in Support of the Communist USSR. USSR was to set up a military base in Cuba and probably set up a nuclear station. This was the reason america quickly sponsored an invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro. Both Cuba and Russia are still under US influenced sanctions for this till date.

Now you want to do the same to Russia and expect her to keep quiet.

Idaytesj29:


Coup is not peaceful neither is Assassination. Yes, there was an invasion.

The 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion by armed militias through southwest Cuba, planned and funded by the United States, in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro, who was in Support of the Communist USSR and her plans to establish a nuclear station and military base in Cuba.

That was not invasion by USA military. It was done by cuba militia group backed by CIA. You don't declare war on country and even threaten to annex it due thing it can be achieved through other means. Coup/assassination will not destroy cities or display civilians etc. War is different ball game. Russia is not smart in dealing with Ukraine.

joyandfaith:


That was not invasion by USA military. It was done by cuba militia group backed by CIA. You don't declare war on country and even threaten to annex it due thing it can be achieved through other means. Coup/assassination will not destroy cities or display civilians etc. War is different ball game. Russia is not smart in dealing with Ukraine.

Agreed. US and Russia should negotiate and suspend all efforts to bring in Ukraine into Nato cos if not evil against Russia, what is the agenda behind the insistence that Ukraine should be a part of NATO?

Idaytesj29:


Agreed. US and Russia should negotiate and suspend all efforts to bring in Ukraine into Nato cos if not evil against Russia, what is the agenda behind the insistence that Ukraine should be a part of NATO?

Ukraine is not joining nato. The process of joining nato is rigorous. But Russia doesn't want Ukraine to relate with the west economically or politically. If you study putin, he prefer to relate with countries with sit-tight presidents or dictators.

joyandfaith:


Ukraine is not joining nato. The process of joining nato is rigorous. But Russia doesn't want Ukraine to relate with the west economically or politically. If you study putin, he prefer to relate with countries with sit-tight presidents or dictators.

You know the history of US and Russia pretty well, so you know that the way every moves of Russia unsettles the US, every move of the US unsettles Russia too.

Russia does want to create a buffer zone between her and the untrusted West. Unfortunately, inspite if all the agreements, the buffer zone has been broken through the membership of NATO by these buffer countries. The last set being Ukraine and Georgia. Russia has been fighting and w9doing towards ensuring these last set of buffers didnt fall.

Russia does not have any issue with Ukraine being a member of the EU for the economic benefit but NATO, it will be an action that will instigate crisis.

Idaytesj29:


You know the history of US and Russia pretty well, so you know that the way every moves of Russia unsettles the US, every move of the US unsettles Russia too.

Russia does want to create a buffer zone between her and the untrusted West. Unfortunately, inspite if all the agreements, the buffer zone has been broken through the membership of NATO by these buffer countries. The last set being Ukraine and Georgia. Russia has been fighting and w9doing towards ensuring these last set of buffers didnt fall.

Russia does not have any issue with Ukraine being a member of the EU for the economic benefit but NATO, it will be an action that will instigate crisis.

May be putin is paranoid. Germany had vetoed ukraine membership of nato because of nord stream 2 project that would benefit the 2 nations. Putin wouldn't allow ukraine to join EU either. It is more complex than you think. Russia is loosing influence in the world at alarming rate. China is even gaining influence more than Russia through economic moves. For Russia to loose Georgia and Ukraine to EU/West sphere of influence means the country has finished. Ukrainians and Georgians contributed to success of SU during ww2 and thereafter. Stalin was a Georgian by ethnicity. About 35 of SU troops were Ukrainians who involved eastern front of the war.
Putin is missing SU.

Idaytesj29

I must commend you for your maturity and rationality which is very much deviod of unnecessary sentiments.

The reality of our contemporary world in human history over a century has, emerged a particular Supper Power so privileged called the United States of America. In all honesty, if the U.S have not been behaving worse than a rogue state since the second World war this particular crisis wouldn't have become a manifestation.

You see, the United States that should have stand as a beacon of hope for the helpess is very much a pillar of direct and indirect oppression of the weak all in an attempt to establish a dominion. Hence, democratic dictatorship.

That is why when we look through the prism of the UN charter and it's article being violated by Russia of course. It is quickly related to tragic precedence of numerous invasions violated by the United States of America and it's allies.

This FACT is one of the argument Putin has also put forward. Which comes back to if only the most privileged country in the world, United States of America have not been a rogue state, our contemporary world since after the world war would have enjoyed a reasonable amount of peace and prosperity.

What is happening at the moment between Russia and Ukraine is only a reflection of human reflexes in an effort to keep at bay the ROGUE STATE, a rogue state which has always justified her illegalities, war crimes by playing on irrational sentiments a core of human psychology.