We all are tempted to say Germany wake up, aren't we?
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/germany-has-5-8-years-to-get-military-into-shape-defence-minister-warns/

Unfortunately Germany currently seems to be slipping into a deep domestic political crisis, with record high dissatisfaction with the ruling coalition, a serious far-right threat and a long-honed aversion against pursuing an active foreign policy.

More easy to say it than for Germans actually to do it!

For example, what is the most costly naval vessel that the German navy has? What has been the most expensive in the long run? It might surprise you, but it has been the Gorch Fock. Which is the ship below:

"Severe" mismanagement within the German navy and Defense Ministry led to massive cost overruns in restoration work on a naval training ship, according to a confidential report seen by Der Spiegel magazine.

Repair estimates on the Gorch Fock were originally priced at under €10 million ($11.5 million), but skyrocketed to €135 million last year, the 39-page report from the National Audit Office found.

The agency blamed military officers for inadequately examining the sailing ship's deficiencies, ignoring information vital for the repair work and failing to fully inform Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen.

Work on the ship's hull and renewal of its upper and middle deck began in 2015 without an economic feasibility study, and without considering the case for constructing a new ship, auditors said.

A Defense Ministry spokesperson said the ministry would submit a formal reply to the Federal Audit Office's accusations by April.

It has taking German navy nine years to rehaul the training ship. So this just tells how bad Germany has it when we are talking about Defense. I think that the French defense budget is smaller, yet they have a) a nuclear deterrent and b) an aircraft carrier along with a larger defense industry.

This all before the problems that remarked above.

For example, what is the most costly naval vessel that the German navy has? What has been the most expensive in the long run? It might surprise you, but it has been the Gorch Fock. Which is the ship below: — ssu

Well, let's not be unfair, the Gorch Fock is not dependent on oil or gas and thus provides an important asset in case Germany's access to these resources is cut.

What makes this whole affair so weird is that the ship is pretty ordinary in technical terms. It's not some wooden ship of the line of ancient heritage. It's a steel-hulled sailing ship from 1958, you could have probably build a new ship to the same specifications for a fraction of the cost.

It's a steel-hulled sailing ship from 1958, you could have probably build a new ship to the same specifications for a fraction of the cost. — Echarmion

That's the biggest outcry now, that why nobody thought of that in the first place. I assume with less than 100 million or even less you could have made a training ship.

But anyway, there are other difficulties: for example when a contract is granted to one company for a weapon system, it's competitors can take it to court. This can hold up for a long time weapons procurement. The other issue is that military readiness has taken a huge fall. I think this has been the result of not taking care of adequate supplies, which leads at worst case to cannibalization. But shrinking the defense budget usually does this: first you cancel large exercises, limit flying hours, limit live firing of munitions. Then you start to save from supplies. And what do you know, in the end you have an Air Force that doesn't train much and which large part of the aircraft fleet are not air worthy.

Then there's the bureacracy: As Germany is a federal state, the bureaucracy makes public spending not something that would quickly react to new situations.

What then becomes the problem is try to make a direction change: once the professional people are gone, the mechanics, the technicians, you don't easily just snap your fingers and they would emerge from thin air to a stack of money. Sweden actually learnt this the hard way as it

The shambolic state of the Bundeswehr's affairs has long been known in military circles. Stories of dysfunctional tanks and helicopters, rifles that fail in hot weather and soldiers having to train in the cold without thermal underwear have been sidelined for years.

Many of the German military’s problems don't always stem from lack of funding, but also from unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles in procurement and poor planning. The thermal underwear shortage stems from the latter.

In 2015, a German broadcaster quoting a confidential military report said that German soldiers tried to hide the lack of arms by replacing heavy machine guns with broomsticks during a NATO exercise in 2014. After painting the wooden sticks black, the German soldiers swiftly attached them to the top of armoured vehicles.

In short, the war in Ukraine has shone a disturbing light on the German military's critical unpreparedness.

What has happened is a lot of talk. The problems still persist. This has been seen in the assistance to the war in Ukraine: Russia got 1 million artillery rounds from North Korea. Ukraine didn't get the similar promised rounds, but only half of it from Europe.

1 - If the formation of a military block bordering with Russia on its eastern front was perceived by Russia as an intolerable existential security threat , this would hold for NATO as much as for a European military alliance. Even more so, if one remember that the US has NEVER EVER invaded Russia proper. France, Germany and Poland did. — neomac

Russia hasn't invaded a NATO country nor an EU country.

Ukraine is neither in NATO nor the EU.

Ukraine also (in the before times) owned Crimea which was home to an important Russian military naval base.

Ukraine is also politically unstable with plenty of armed factions willing to cause trouble and explicitly dedicated to the destruction of Russia.

Furthermore, and this responds to @ssu as well who seems often mystified that Russia views NATO as a threat, NATO is not just an alliance where parties commit to mutual defence, it is also a military hardware system.

Moving weapons closer to someone or something is by definition a threat.

If I put a gun to your head, you'd view that as threatening even if I was "promising" to not harm you and if fact only putting a gun to your head to defend myself!

Now, you can argue that Russia shouldn't invade Ukraine even if NATO is indeed a legitimate threat to Russia, but arguing NATO is not a legitimate threat is just dumb.

It is such an obvious legitimate threat that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was completely predictable if the push / game of footsie to integrate Ukraine into NATO continued.

Which makes that policy either completely idiotic or then entirely for the purpose of provoking Russia into invading Ukraine.

Since obviously NATO isn't going to risk any of its precious little soldiers to "defend Ukrainian sovereignty" and Ukraine has no hope of defeating Russia, the purpose of the policy is not the preservation of Ukrainian sovereignty, preservation of Ukrainian lives nor really preserving anything "Ukrainian" whatsoever.

Now that the copium highs are wearing off, such as belief in the great counter offensive and "cutting the land bridge", I really hope cheerleaders for Ukraine fighting, repudiating any compromise whatsoever, rather than negotiating and compromising and really able to take a long honest stare at the dead so far and simply ask themselves if its fair that these people died on false premises and false promises.

What happened to the US promise of "whatever it takes"?

Oh right, it's turned into we've completely run out of funding for Ukraine ... but other people are to blame for that!

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 10, 2024 (ISW Press)

Hmm Not optimistic ...

In this thread, I will explain why we are much closer to war with RU than most people realize and why our time window for rearmament is shorter than many believe. In my opinion, we have at best 2-3 years to re-establish deterrence vis-à-vis RU. [...] (— Fabian Hoffmann · Jan 14, 2024)

Germany preparing for Russia to start World War 3, leaked war plans reveal (— Chris Nesi · New York Post (and Bild) · Jan 15, 2024)


, I don't think you quite caught my drift with those couple comments. (Maybe try not to zoom in on individual verbiage while oddly forgetting the rest?)

Might be hard for you to acknowledge, but there's more to justification rationale motivation (hence cumulative explanation) than Machiavellian opportunism and glory and heroics. :D I guess thinking so is kind of telling. Impoverished. Except, makes better headlines. Worry not, yo' pal Putin stands up against unchecked imperialist expansionism of democracy. :up: "It's nefarious!"

Russia is building back its war machine. ^{(and other things by the way -me)} — boethius

Just imagine the horrors of peace. — boethius

:D

Any difference in response to the invasion (e.g. China, North and South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Hungary, the US, the UK, France, Poland, Romania, Finland, Sweden, the Baltics, ...) might just suggest (non)antagonism, (not) standing up, (non)apathy, or whatever else.

^{(fyi, embedded links can give refs/context, can help memory too :wink:)}

Russia looking to start WW3 against a power bloc that has a GDP roughly 20 times greater than it, ...

... or simply the MIC pushing propaganda to start the largest arms build-up since WW2 so it can profit exorbitantly and probably bring WW3 closer than it actually is now?

The US is probably also in on this, hoping to militarize Europe and provoke a wider war between it and Russia, to avoid either from profiting too much when the US will be inevitably crippled by conflicts with China and North Korea in the Pacific, and other conflicts elsewhere.

Now, you can argue that Russia shouldn't invade Ukraine even if NATO is indeed a legitimate threat to Russia, but arguing NATO is not a legitimate threat is just dumb. — boethius

Is Russia a legitimate threat to NATO?

Is Russia a legitimate threat to NATO? — Jabberwock

Obviously, has thousands of nukes.

The problem vis-a-vis Ukraine is that Ukraine is not a legitimate area of strategic defence for NATO.

If Ukraine was of legitimate strategic value to NATO, then NATO would have gone in the night to Ukraine at some point in the 20 years it's been playing footsie with Ukraine and just brought Ukraine into the alliance by surprise and then flooded the country with NATO troops, bases and equipment the next day.

NATO doesn't do this, before the war or even before declaring Ukraine would join ... oh some day, because Ukraine isn't important to the defence of NATO, certainly not the United States.

Therefore, it's irrational to risk nuclear escalation in order to secure territory that you don't care about.

So, why is there a war?

Well there isn't a war between Russia and NATO, that's clear.

There's a war because enough Ukrainians (though not the majority, going by any of the votes in which this was a major topic) are gullible enough to play footsie back with NATO and some of those even gullible enough to think NATO really will "stand up" for democracy and risk something real for themselves (aka. nuclear war) in order to "defend freedom or whatever".

The other reason we have the war is that the US elite saw strategic benefit in provoking tensions, as the RAND document literally entitled "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia" makes clear. Now, it's possible US elite weren't aiming for such a large scale war so destructive to Ukraine, but as RAND makes perfectly clear that is a risk (to Ukraine) of the policy.

Maybe try living in the real world for a couple of hours, the time at leas to review these events.

Sure, NATO can go play footsie with Ukraine and clearly threaten Russia with moving the NATO military system even closer to it and in a country that is unstable with all sorts of armed factions with their own agendas (risk of NATO in Ukraine is not the same as the risk of NATO in Finland, a stable and predictable country).

NATO can do that. Whether you want to argue it's a right or not, doesn't matter; they can do it, and there's real world consequences, whether you want to argue those real world consequences "shouldn't happen" or not, they happen.

Those real world consequences of footsie with Ukraine is Russia invades to, if not put a definite stop to further NATO encroachment, push the border back and severely weaken Ukraine economically and demographically thus structurally lowering the threat over the long term.

This just makes strategic sense in any longish view of history whatsoever and if I worked for the Kremlin I would have come to the same conclusion and recommended the same actions. The US has a history of starting and provoking wars to weaken its rivals, there's no reason it would stop that policy once Ukraine was actually in NATO or then further strengthened in arms and NATO training.

The question the US was putting to Russia was basically "you want to do business with Europe, you have to accept military encirclement on your Western border; you can do business, sure, but only with a gun to your head".

From the US perspective, it's also a good strategy. For, if Russia chooses to do business with Europe, then it does so under greater military threat and pressure and can be more easily controlled; the tension, in turn, would also help control European vassal provinces to the US empire. If it chooses to defend its strategic military interest then the US can completely cut Russia from Europe, weakening both rival centres of power (one economic and one military, and Europe is the greater threat to US power, so if the war turns out to actually benefit Russian military power, that's no biggy if European economic power is sucker punched in the process); Europe as essentially a stable, prosperous "peace vortex" in the land-mass centre of the world, is a far greater threat to US power than Russia and China combined; and what US strategists would fear most would be the EU breaking free of its vassla status and laying the foundation for global trade between Africa, Europe, Russia and East-Asia (stable financial, political and financial systems facilitate stable trade relationships; and Europe, until recently, had the opportunity to essentially leverage its political stability to become the arbiters of a new world trade relations; yes, that would include Russia, but a Russia trading peacefully with the rest of the world, and yes would include China but a China trading peacefully with the rest of the world, and everyone looking to European institutions to keep things relatively cordial and smooth, precisely because Europe has little strategic interest in renewed militarism).

So, a peaceful and prosperous Western Europe was good strategy against the Soviet Union, but a peaceful and prosperous whole Europe!!!! Including the former Soviet states!! Including Russia!!!! Forget about it!!!

We can easily make sense of the strategic decisions of both the US and Russia.

What does not make sense is the decision of Ukraine to be used as a proxy against Russia, completely ruining its economy and demographics and losing significant territory (including valuable industrial and resource territory), and likewise what doesn't make sense is Europes active participation of provoking the war which was easily avoided (plenty of European states in NATO that could have put the breaks on NATO enlargement to Ukraine and even expressed extreme hesitation and wariness, but the US said "hmmm, how about suck it" and that's what they did for decades) in addition to the EU being instrumental in provoking the 2014 coup, it was the EU ultimatum that was the casus belli for the CIA backed protests and then CIA backed coup. It was not in the EU's interest to purposefully create this sort of tension. The Ukrainians just voted in a compromiser with Russia and it would have been both the morally right and politically astute thing to do of letting this democratic mandate of compromise with Russia play out (that would have been respecting Ukrainian sovereignty). Now, the EU did realize its mistake and then rushed to work out a compromise deal between Russia, Ukraine and itself, which succeeded, but by the it was too late and the chaos could be transformed by CIA backed paramilitary forces into a violent coup.

So Russia takes Crimea in response to this uncertainty, an obviously wise strategic move.

Then there's this civil war in the Donbas that two rounds of diplomacy try to resolve, but we're informed later that the effort on the part of Ukraine and the EU states was entirely duplicitous and bad faith.

Then Ukraine elects another compromiser promising to make peace with Russia (as normal Ukrainians don't want a war with Russia that would be immensely destructive to Ukraine, in a best case scenario), and Zelensky is elected with a mandate to fight corruption and make peace with Russia. Zelensky literally said he would go on his knees to Moscow and beg for peace, that's how much of a self-effacing compromiser he was.

Now, I think Zelensky's words were genuine. The problem with Zelensky is he's an idiot without any political experience and easily controlled and manipulated.

↪boethius, I don't think you quite caught my drift with those couple comments. (Maybe try not to zoom in on individual verbiage while oddly forgetting the rest?) — jorndoe

Well what is your drift then?

If we agree that NATO isn't "making a stand" in Ukraine and no one, outside Ukraine, is actually "standing up for freedom or whatever" then what is NATO doing in Ukraine according to your alleged drift?

And what's your analytical methodology here, that if you say something obviously false (such as people outside Ukraine doing nothing remotely similar to "standing up" are in fact standing up to Putin) ... that I should just zoom out and see that you have some opposite meaning to your false statement?

I'm supposed to just blur my vision and get a general sense of what you're talking about by taking in all the letters as once and just "feeling you"?

How exactly am I supposed to understand your position if I don't zoom in on different aspects of what you say and challenge you on those statements or ask questions.

If your position is people should stand up to Putin, but no one's actually doing that outside Ukraine, certainly not yourself, that's very different to what you wrote initially.

Obviously, has thousands of nukes.

The problem vis-a-vis Ukraine is that Ukraine is not a legitimate area of strategic defence for NATO.

If Ukraine was of legitimate strategic value to NATO, then NATO would have gone in the night to Ukraine at some point in the 20 years it's been playing footsie with Ukraine and just brought Ukraine into the alliance by surprise and then flooded the country with NATO troops, bases and equipment the next day. — boethius

That is hilarious from someone urging me to 'live in the real world'. You clearly have no idea how the real world works... Ukraine joining of NATO required consent of all it members, some of which (mostly Germany and France) blocked it in 2008 (not for fear of Russian reprisal, but due to quite lucractive business going on, not to mention subversive influence of Russian on European politics which is only now being disclosed). Moreover, it has required consent of various Ukraine political factions which played this card against each other for years. Joining of Poland took six years, with all the sides much more willing. Thus your scenario of 'going in in the night' is completely divorced from reality and just shows how naive is your view of politics.

So, why is there a war?

Well there isn't a war between Russia and NATO, that's clear.

There's a war because enough Ukrainians (though no the majority, going by any of the votes in which this was a major topic) are gullible enough to play footsie back with NATO and some of those even gullible enough to think NATO really will "stand up" for democracy and risk something real for themselves (aka. nuclear war) in order to "defend freedom or whatever".

The other reason we have the war is that the US elite saw strategic benefit in provoking tensions, as the RAND document literally entitled "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia" makes clear. Now, it's possible US elite weren't aiming for such a large scale war so destructive to Ukraine, but as RAND makes perfectly clear that is a risk (to Ukraine) of the policy. — boethius

No, that is not the reason there is a war. The reason there is war is because most Ukrainians, as the constant majority of votes shows, want to get out of the Russian sphere of influence, just like Poland and the Baltics did. And for Putin that is unacceptable, as most of his powerbase relies on the nationalistic circles which helped him maintain and consolidate his power.

The rest of your fantasies are not really worth addressing, as you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Hint: Germany and France did block Ukraine's accession, hint 2: 'it was the EU ultimatum that was the casus belli' is so wrong it is beyond hilarious.

That is hilarious from someone urging me to 'live in the real world'. You clearly have no idea how the real world works... Ukraine joining of NATO required consent of all it members, some of which (mostly Germany and France) blocked it in 2008 (not for fear of Russian reprisal, but due to quite lucractive business going on, not to mention subversive influence of Russian on European politics which is only now being disclosed). — Jabberwock

In other words ... what you're saying is ... in the real world Ukraine is not important enough to NATO for NATO to let Ukraine in ...

Congratulations on expounding on the reasons why Ukraine is not important strategically to NATO.

But lets say Ukraine was strategically important to the US and the UK and not Germany and France, well first note that's another way of saying Ukraine is not important enough to NATO for NATO to let it in, but even then the US and UK are big boys, they could just go and make a bilateral defence agreement, such as the UK made with Finland to cover the ascension process.

US acts unilaterally all the time, so if Ukraine was somehow strategically important to the US, the US would just march right in, make some bases: as it does everywhere else it says it has "strategic national interest" in.

(mostly Germany and France) blocked it in 2008 not for fear of Russian reprisal, but due to quite lucractive business going on — Jabberwock

Is literally just straight up saying "Important members of NATO weren't afraid of Russia in the slightest, didn't even view Russia as a military rival, and just wanted to do business!!"

Not even fearing reprisal is as far as possible as you can get from some strategic military asset required for credible defence.

No, that is not the reason there is a war. The reason there is war is because most Ukrainians, as the constant majority of votes shows, want to get out of the Russian sphere of influence, just like Poland and the Baltics did. — Jabberwock

This is probably true, sure, but most Ukrainians also wanted to avoid a war with Russia in such a process, and so why they kept on voting for compromisers, including Zelensky advertised himself as a compromiser.

Likewise, certainly a majority of Ukrainians would like to be in NATO as a way to avoid being invaded by Russia.

The problem is that NATO doesn't let Ukraine in.

If you put it to Ukrainians anytime in the decades before the war that "would you like to play footsie with NATO for decades, be in a 'will we, won't we relationship' and all cute and shit, but never actually get into NATO and likely be invaded by Russia and the country ruined, millions of Ukrainians permanently leaving, the already terrible demographics totally shot ... oh, and hundreds of thousands of heroes dead or maimed in a war they can't win?", you really saying most Ukrainians would be like "oh! sign me up! Glory to those soon to be dead heroes!".

I don't think so. Rather, people in "less sophisticated" places, such as Ukraine, often put stock in word keeping, as that's the only way society has any sort of structure at all, and they are easily manipulated by more sophisticated civilizations that can see a bigger picture where their word meaning absolutely nothing is of greater benefit to themselves, over the long term; talk to the native Americans if this level of sophistications escapes your imagination.

When NATO started playing footsie with Ukraine, Ukrainians believed it: afraid, hesitant, maybe even disillusioned at times, but believed it enough to prance down the footsie path far enough of provoking a war ... and just guess if by this point on the yellow brick road, of a full scale invasion, Ukraine got their NATO medallion or not from the NATO magician?

Again, as I've said many times, I have zero problem with Ukrainian aspirations.

The problem is the West does not grant those aspirations, but rather cynically uses Ukraine, to its near total destruction, for its own purposes ... all while telling Ukrainians, and Western citizens for that matter, that "yeah, yeah, sure, sure, freedom".

as you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Hint: Germany and France did block Ukraine's accession, hint 2 — Jabberwock

This oscillation is honestly stupendous.

One moment of course Ukraine has a right to join NATO and has a right to form closer military partnerships with NATO and NATO countries, bring in NATO arms and training and so on, all this is just exercising sovereignty and common sense moves of trying to get out of the yoke of Russian sphere of influence.

And the next moment, recognizing NATO is obviously a legitimate threat to Russia, apparently Ukraine would never join NATO so NATO isn't really a threat after all and NATO claiming Ukraine would join one day, and all the military collaboration, and Ukraine putting joining NATO in their constitution was just fliff fluff that meant nothing ... well if it means nothing, the statements and collaborations and arming on the ground, why do it? Why put joining NATO in your constitution if "everybody knows" Ukraine would never join NATO and it's nothing to worry about for Russia.

It's literally schizophrenic levels of delusional contradiction.

What are the facts, NATO declared Ukraine would join, and then Ukraine made a clumsy play to join NATO thinking that would solve its security problem and NATO certainly would need to keep its word ... oh, some day.

The play didn't work and the the thing joining NATO was supposed to avoid, being invaded by Russia, was provoked by the play: exactly the risk such a play entails.

NATO could have saved the day anytime since decades and just marched in and "stand up to Putin" on Putin's own border, but NATO didn't. Why? Because no one in NATO wants to actually pay any cost to "have Ukraine". Why? Because Ukraine isn't important strategically or economically or in any other way for the West to pay an actual cost. Hundreds of billions of dollars (much of it a direct subsidy to the war industry) you may say is a cost? Ha!! 4% of a single 7 trillion bank bailout! Those are rookie numbers.

You gotta get those numbers way up for it to be some real cost to the West ... and who just announced no more dollaridoos, not a single one left, for Ukraine?

Could be they're just working on it ... or could be further support may actually feel like a real cost, and who in the West wants to pay a real cost in Ukraine?

In other words ... what you're saying is ... in the real world Ukraine is not important enough to NATO for NATO to let Ukraine in ...

Congratulations on expounding on the reasons why Ukraine is not important strategically to NATO. — boethius

Congratulations, you have finally understood that the war has very little to do with NATO. Now convince the other Russian apologetics.

But lets say Ukraine was strategically important to the US and the UK and not Germany and France, well first note that's another way of saying Ukraine is not important enough to NATO for NATO to let it in, but even then the US and UK are big boys, they could just go and make a bilateral defence agreement, such as the UK made with Finland to cover the ascension process.

US acts unilaterally all the time, so if Ukraine was somehow strategically important to the US, the US would just march right in, make some bases: as it does everywhere else it says it has "strategic national interest" in. — boethius

Congratulations, now you understand that the war has little to do with the US as well. We are definitely making progress!

Is literally just straight up saying "Important members of NATO weren't afraid of Russia in the slightest, didn't even view Russia as a military rival, and just wanted to do business!!"

Not even fearing reprisal is as far as possible as you can get from some strategic military asset required for credible defence. — boethius

Congratulations, now you understand that just having nukes and bases and forces is not that much of a threat in itself, if the probability of its use is so minimal.

This is probably true, sure, but most Ukrainians also wanted to avoid a war with Russia in such a process, and so why they kept on voting for compromisers, including Zelensky advertised himself as a compromiser.

Likewise, certainly a majority of Ukrainians would like to be in NATO as a way to avoid being invaded by Russia.

The problem is that NATO doesn't let Ukraine in. — boethius

They voted for Yanukovych who promised them further economic integration with the EU and then reneged on that promise (that is why you have the reasons for the Euromaidan completely backwards). Zelensky also supported stronger integration with the EU and in his campaign was focused mostly on the internal matters (it is more that his rival Poroshenko painted him as a Russian conciliator). Sure, at a time he was supporting the militarily neutral stance, but it became clear that Russia is not interested.

If you put it to Ukrainians anytime in the decades before the war that "would you like to play footsie with NATO for decades, be in a 'will we, won't we relationship' and all cute and shit, but never actually get into NATO and likely be invaded by Russia and the country ruined, millions of Ukrainians permanently leaving, the already terrible demographics totally shot ... oh, and hundreds of thousands of heroes dead or maimed in a war they can't win?", you really saying most Ukrainians would be like "oh! sign me up! Glory to those soon to be dead heroes!".

I don't think so. Rather, people in "less sophisticated" places, such as Ukraine, often put stock in word keeping, as that's the only way society has any sort of structure at all, and they are easily manipulated by more sophisticated civilizations that can see a bigger picture where their word meaning absolutely nothing is of greater benefit to themselves, over the long term; talk to the native Americans if this level of sophistications escapes your imagination.

So you are saying that Ukrainians after their own independence war in 1917-1920, Katyn, Finland, Afghanistan, the Lithuania intervention, two Chechen wars, the Georgia war, and dozens of others were blissfully unaware what Russian imperialism means? It seems your naivety shows again.

What are the facts, NATO declared Ukraine would join, and then Ukraine made a clumsy play to join NATO thinking that would solve its security problem and NATO certainly would need to keep its word ... oh, some day. — boethius

The facts are that in 2008 Germany and France blocked MAP, which put Ukraine on hold indefinitely. Then Ukraine declared independence from military alliances and put in its constitution. Then Russia has invaded it anyway. These are the facts, which you again seem unaware of.

The facts are that in 2008 Germany and France blocked MAP, which put Ukraine on hold indefinitely. Then Ukraine declared independence from military alliances and put in its constitution. Then Russia has invaded it anyway. These are the facts, which you again seem unaware of. — Jabberwock

First a "holding pattern" is not a stop.

Ukraine declared both simultaneously that it was neutral and also intent on joining NATO, and that also their definition of neutrality didn't exclude collaboration with NATO.

In your delusional world where real world consequences don't matter, this sort of bullshit is enough to be totally convincing that NATO and the US was therefore doing absolutely nothing in Ukraine, whatever it was doing doesn't matter, and also Frand and Germany put a definitive stop to Ukraine joining NATO.

What the facts and reality actually is that exactly what I describe, a game of footsie a "will they won't they" relationship where everything is declared simultaneously. In the "let's rewrite history league" all the nonsense, such as claiming military collaboration with a military alliance is "neutral", was abundantly clearly not encroachment.

In the real world, what playing footsie indicates to any outside observer is "they might, they really might".

Ukraine's play was "keep thing ambiguous and hopefully jump into NATO one day". The play didn't work. You can argue Ukraine had a right to make such a play. Sure whatever. You can also argue that the play was the best move but unfortunately hasn't worked out so good; sometimes to the best move is foiled by bad luck. I have no problem recognizing people have a right to do stupid things, so the first point is not a problem for me, but definitely I would argue the second point is just plain wrong: if you are situated right beside a much larger power, you need to deal with that and not look to a large power thousands of kilometres away to save the day and protect you: you can play footsie with distant powers all you want, they'll certainly find that flattering and entertaining, but they're never going to be your partner unless there's some massive benefit that is worth the risk; that's just how reality works.

Ukraine declared both simultaneously that it was neutral and also intent on joining NATO, and that also their definition of neutrality didn't exclude collaboration with NATO. — boethius

No, it did not. The discussion gets really tiresome when you get all the facts wrong.

Ukraine's play was "keep thing ambiguous and hopefully jump into NATO one day". The play didn't work. You can argue Ukraine had a right to make such a play. Sure whatever. You can also argue that the play was the best move but unfortunately hasn't worked out so good; sometimes to the best move is foiled by bad luck. — boethius

How bad was it for Ukraine to hand over the nuclear deterrent to Russia? And believe that Russia would keep up it's promises made several times?

John Mearsheimer got that thing right in the 1990's. But nobody listened: the threat was "loose nukes". In fact, because of similar fears, man portable SAMs were bought from Ukraine and destroyed.

Which now would have been extremely important...

, it's doubtful that the Kremlin would start a nuclear world war. Casting long shadows on the other hand, well, it's what they do these days, and apparently intend to keep up.

The Suwałki Gap has come up a few times, e.g. 2024Jan14, 2024Jan17.

By the way, NATO has been (is) tiptoeing around Russia. There aren't many that wants to go to war, it's just that it's already happening with ongoing destruction and killing.

How bad was it for Ukraine to hand over the nuclear deterrent to Russia? And believe that Russia would keep up it's promises made several times? — ssu

The issue of the nukes is far more complicated than you say here.

Let us consider first just the military aspects.

Ukraine didn't have the arming codes and ability to maintain the nukes.

They would need to develop a nuclear program, where certainly having a bunch of nukes already would be a head start, but this would take a lot of resources.

So, let's assume Ukrainians do that, well to be an effective deterrent then Ukraine would need to likewise develop a nuclear triad of silo, air and sea delivery capability.

And this is where Ukraine clearly just doesn't have the resources to pull that off.

In this alternative history scenario, the more the Ukrainians would try to develop an effective triad, let's say even just 2 of the 3, the more nuclear weapons would be pointed at essentially all of Ukraine on a hair trigger.

Ok, imagine Ukrainians succeed at developing enough of the triad to be just barely effective ... what if it's compromised by Russian intelligence?

It's not as easy as just "we have some nukes lying round", you need a multiplicity of delivery systems that are not likely to be compromised all at once, otherwise you are inviting a first strike to take out your capability.

There is almost no end point we could imagine where Ukraine would develop a robust triad, or part of the triad, to be a deterrent.

To make things worse, developing these systems would take time: would Russia have allowed Ukraine to fiddle around with the triad until they got things working well enough to deter Russia?

So, it's not as "slam dunk" a case as Ukraine should have kept the weapons; had they refused the likely outcome would have been immediate war with Ukraine to retrieve the nuclear weapons before Ukraine could figure out how to hack or rebuild the nukes and setup effective delivery systems. My understanding is also that the nukes Ukraine had were guarded by Russian military personnel, so options were limited.

The deterrent value of the nuclear weapons in Ukraine was also questionable: while Ukraine had "administrative control" of the weapons delivery systems and had implemented measures to prevent Russia from using them, it would have needed 12 to 18 months to establish full operational control. The ICBMs also had a range of 5,000–10,000 km (initially targeting the United States), so they could only have been re-targeted to hit Russia's far east. The Soviet air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) had been disabled by the Russian military during the collapse of the Soviet Union, but even reconfigured and made to work by the Ukrainians, they would probably not have had a deterrent effect and had Ukraine done so, it would have faced sanctions from the West and perhaps even a withdrawal of diplomatic recognition by the United States and other NATO allies, and likely retaliation from Russia. Ukraine would also have struggled to replace the nuclear weapons once their service life expired, as it did not have a nuclear weapons program. Ukraine received financial compensation, and the security assurances of the Budapest Memorandum. — Ukraine and weapons of mass destruction, Wikipedia

Then there's proliferation, the US wasn't thinking: hmmm, maybe in 3 decades we want to prop up Ukraine as a proxy force to damage Russia ... while at the same time claiming it's all about Ukrainian sovereignty so what would be compatible with our proposed categorical imperative in 3 decades (Ukrainian freedom is all that matters) we should push for Ukraine to keep it's nuclear weapons and let them, if not help them, develop as much of the nuclear triad as they can ... yeah, that's what we need to do to be men of our word.

US didn't want Ukraine to have nukes either and an additional proliferation concern so trying to keep the nukes would have resulted, at best, in international pariah status even if we imagine there wasn't the above problems.

Ukraine's options were: dash for nuclear weapons and likely be invaded and nuked tomorrow ... to avoid getting nuked, or give up the nuclear weapons in exchange for some things. Ukraine was not in a good strategic position vis-a-vis the nukes.

Furthermore, as the wikipedia article notes, the Russians disabled the cruise missiles and were obviously concerned about the nukes, and certainly had a plan to recover the nuclear weapons by force if need be.

This was not a case of: you can keep the nukes if you want, we don't mind, but we're offering you this deal which maybe you'll take ... but if things go bad later you'll certainly regret it, totally you're choice though, we cool.

1 - If the formation of a military block bordering with Russia on its eastern front was perceived by Russia as an intolerable existential security threat , this would hold for NATO as much as for a European military alliance. Even more so, if one remember that the US has NEVER EVER invaded Russia proper. France, Germany and Poland did. — neomac

Russia hasn't invaded a NATO country nor an EU country.
Ukraine is neither in NATO nor the EU. — boethius

Russia wasn’t invaded by NATO nor an EU country either. And Ukraine is not part of the Russian Federation either. So what?

Ukraine also (in the before times) owned Crimea which was home to an important Russian military naval base. — boethius

Ukraine also owns commodities precious to Europe (and the World). And the Russian military naval base is a gun pointing at Ukraine’s business with Europe (and the World). So what?

Ukraine is also politically unstable with plenty of armed factions willing to cause trouble and explicitly dedicated to the destruction of Russia. — boethius

Could you provide sources from “plenty of armed factions” to support your claim that “plenty of armed factions” are “explicitly dedicated to the destruction of Russia” prior to 2014?

Furthermore, and this responds to ssu as well who seems often mystified that Russia views NATO as a threat, NATO is not just an alliance where parties commit to mutual defence, it is also a military hardware system.

Moving weapons closer to someone or something is by definition a threat. — boethius

By definition even? Did your babushka tell you that?

If I put a gun to your head, you'd view that as threatening even if I was "promising" to not harm you and if fact only putting a gun to your head to defend myself! — boethius

That’s true for Russia as much as for Ukraine. However for Ukraine it is two times more true:
1 - By your babushka’s definition of legitimate threat plus Russia having weapons on the border with Ukraine
2 - Russia has historically bullied Ukraine, not the other way around
3 - Russia is a nuclear power and a military capacity that is overwhelming wrt Ukraine without Western support

Now, you can argue that Russia shouldn't invade Ukraine even if NATO is indeed a legitimate threat to Russia, but arguing NATO is not a legitimate threat is just dumb. — boethius

It’s not as dumb as claiming that Ukraine is a threat to Russia just by moving weapons to Ukraine (Ukraine could build their weapon industry too, but better if they buy western of course). Compare the different threats posed by: strategic nuclear weapons vs tactic nuclear weapons , lethal vs non-lethal weapons, hot weapons vs cold weapons. Bringing to Ukraine lots of Swiss knives is definitely a threat to Russia by your babushka’s definition. But a laughable one.

It is such an obvious legitimate threat that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was completely predictable if the push / game of footsie to integrate Ukraine into NATO continued. — boethius

Your babushka’s definition of legitimate threat (“Moving weapons closer to someone or something is by definition a threat”) doesn’t make predictable Russian aggression of Ukraine AT ALL.
Indeed, a counterexample is the Cuban crisis. The US didn’t need to invade, regime change or annex Cuba, once the Soviet Union and the US found an agreement over the deployment of nuclear weapons Cuban could keep its regime and its territorial integrity.
Russia itself offers another counterexample, here: in April 1997, China and Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan signed the Agreement on Mutual Reduction of Military Forces in the Border Areas. It stipulates that the five countries shall reduce their military forces in the border areas to the minimum level compatible with their friendly and good-neighborly relations, a level that shall not go beyond their defense needs
http://lt.china-office.gov.cn/eng/zt/zfbps/200405/t20040530_2910828.htm
So it’s not evident AT ALL that if Ukraine has in border areas a level of weapons that does “not go beyond their defense needs”, this would be an unbearable existential threat to Russia.

Which makes that policy either completely idiotic or then entirely for the purpose of provoking Russia into invading Ukraine. — boethius

The alleged provocation is claimed to become unbearable in 2008 and the NATO enlargement even before 2008 and before Putin for that matter.
Yet the invasion of Crimea happened in 2014 and the “special military operation“ in 2022. So, at least, 6 years later after the unbearable existential threat for Russia has manifested. How so?
“Provocation” doesn’t seem to have enough explanatory power without assuming HEGEMONIC COMPETITION over spheres of influence and all other relevant events that ENABLED AND ENCOURAGED Russia aggression of Ukraine in 2014 and then in 2022. More than PROVOCATION to aggress Ukraine we should talk about OPPORTUNITY to aggress Ukraine.

the purpose of the policy is not the preservation of Ukrainian sovereignty — boethius

The preservation of Ukraine sovereignty has been already achieved so far. Russia failed its regime coup in Kiev. The West may not be interested in or capable of securing the Ukrainian territorial integrity by military means.

Now that the copium highs are wearing off, such as belief in the great counter offensive and "cutting the land bridge", I really hope cheerleaders for Ukraine fighting, repudiating any compromise whatsoever, rather than negotiating and compromising and really able to take a long honest stare at the dead so far and simply ask themselves if its fair that these people died on false premises and false promises. — boethius

First, I must ask: who are “the cheerleaders for Ukraine fighting” “repudiating any compromise whatsoever” in this thread? I want names and quotes.
Second, your caricature is conflating propaganda with politics AS USUAL. It’s a caricature, because as far as I’m concerned, those people who believed/believe it possible for Ukraine to regain its territories back, don’t need to have a specific military plan or timeline in mind, and their expectations were/are conditional on the Western military aid which has significantly declined over time so far. But the idea that the Western military support would be actually enough to support the Ukrainian offensive, could be more a honest hope than a honest belief. It’s conflating propaganda with politics because it’s completely unreasonable to expect that politicians would easily fall for propaganda (so e.g. politics may say something to the press and then say something else behind doors). And, by my understanding, political decision makers of sovereign countries are the primary responsible of their policies because THAT’S THE POLITICAL RULE OF THE GAME THEY ARE PLAYING: the political leadership of sovereign states IS the political agent and must primarily respond for their foreign policy decisions wrt the perceived national interest TO THEIR PEOPLE. Besides the political urge for propaganda is PHYSIOLOGICAL to the political competition and pushed by media outlets (also beyond political utility or intentionality) so one should neither overstate the reliability of propaganda (e.g. propaganda slogans like "whatever it takes”), nor overblame its unreliability. The same holds for ANY COUNTER-PROPAGANDA (INCLUDING YOURS!). All I can agree with is that Russia has scored more points in the propaganda contest so far and this is a major blowback against the West. Maybe deservedly so.
Third, as far as I’m concerned, I do not regret nor retreat anything I said, and I still support it. ALL OF IT, WORD BY WORD. And I would do so even if the entire Ukraine (my country, the world) and its population was erased by fighting with Russia. Also because, differently from you, I’m not doing propaganda. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just engaging in an irrelevant philosophy forum with irrelevant anonymous nobodies (who have ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING CLUE on what to do to fix the world) as a form of selfish intellectual entertainment like a videogame, and nothing else. You can’t emotionally blackmail me, man of honour. So suck it up and move on.

And this is where Ukraine clearly just doesn't have the resources to pull that off. — boethius

Nonsense. What Ukraine lacked is simply the political will. If a dirt-poor North Korea can create a nuclear deterrent, obviously Ukraine could have done that far more easily with already existing material and know how.

OK, let's start with the basics:

1) Ukraine does have uranium mines (Smolinskaya).
2) Ukraine did and does have the know how.
3) Ukraine had the weapons, even if it basically would have had to create and maintain new weapon systems.

In hindsight, if / when preserving that nuclear deterrence would likely had deterred Russia, then naturally any kind of nuclear weapons program would surely had been worth it compared to how costly this war has been for Ukraine. But this idea can only be seen in hindsight. The only one then making the assumption that without nukes, Russia would invade Ukraine, was John Mearsheimer.

But as Ukraine, or it's leadership at least, clearly believed in the promises from Russia (and from the Western states) in the Budapest memorandum, creating an own nuclear deterrent was out of the question. Not only would it have deeply angered Russia, the US would have been extremely angry too!

Not an ideal policy for Ukraine in the 1990's. Especially when Russia wasn't considered to be a threat, but a country that could fight it's way out of a paper bag (after the first Chechen war).

Various people/groups have considered what might come to pass in case the Kremlin prevails, you can check the credentials of those below yourself. (What "prevails" means here is sort of contextual to their writings.) I've just summarized very briefly and incompletely. Much of this has come up prior in the thread. Apologies for the overlaps, some of their writings already do.

What if Russia wins? (Simon Kuper · Financial Times · Dec 21, 2023)

• reprisals, pro-Ukraine = anti-Kremlin, Ukrainian defense = terrorism, removals, oppression (some such already documented, non-hypothetical)
• whatever part of Ukraine that remains Ukrainian would remain in the Kremlin's crosshairs
• a quarter of all wheat exports would be Kremlin-controlled
• others are taking notes (China, North Korea, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Russians (far-right'ers in particular)), can find encouragement rather than discouragement — also see The West’s Inaction Over Ukraine Risks Dangerous Conclusions in Moscow (Dara Massicot · Carnegie · Dec 18, 2023)
• NATO, the EU and Ukraine-friends seen as discredited across the board, suiting the Kremlin well

War Against Ukraine: What if Russia Wins? (Nico Lange, Carlo Masala · GLOBSEC · Nov 28, 2023)

• extremists fascists populists gain all around, division (and polarization) outside Russia (some such non-hypothetical)
• Ukraine unstable for the longer haul, Ukrainian defense = terrorism, Ukrainian animosity increasing, purges, oppression (some such already observed, non-hypothetical)
• instability → increased risk of wider warring
• the Kremlin gains from emboldened Russian nationalism and neo-imperialism
• "new security order in Europe" and elsewhere, others are taking notes
• also check the "Zeitenwende" speech (Olaf Scholz · Bundestag · Feb 27, 2022)

The High Price of Losing Ukraine (Frederick W Kagan, Kateryna Stepanenko, Mitchell Belcher, Noel Mikkelsen, Thomas Bergeron · ISW · Dec 14, 2023)

• the Kremlin will have gained confidence and likely more domestic support, plus extra land and resources, to further their war path

The High Price of Losing Ukraine: Part 2 — The Military Threat and Beyond (Nataliya Bugayova · ISW · Dec 22, 2023)

• others are taking notes, Ukraine's friends can be manipulated
• post-Putin Kremlin will likely be further authoritarian, nationalistic
• increasing steps to extinguish Ukrainian (and Belarusian) identity
• higher risks to Russia's neighbors
• environment where moral relativism further resurges and values further erode
• normalization of the Kremlin way (pulling wider regress)

What a Russian Victory Would Mean for Ukraine (Adrian Karatnycky · Foreign Policy · Dec 19, 2023)

• others are taking notes, revisionists emboldened to forcefully change borders / run campaigns
• European division; to appease the Kremlin or to rearm?
• reprisals, pro-Ukraine = anti-Kremlin, Ukrainian defense = terrorism, removals, oppression, systematic cultural cleansing, directed indoctrination
• higher domestic support, higher risks to others

Some of the writings are worst-case here and there. Some expectations are easily reasonable. Not much mentioned about the Russian regress explicitly, this would eventually encompass assimilated land (which, on the other hand, was mentioned).

As an aside, for an alternative comedic dramatization of the Stalin → Khrushchev transition, check The Death of Stalin (2017).

Poll: Ukrainians' trust in Zelensky declines to 62%, trust in military, Zaluzhnyi remains high
https://kyivindependent.com/poll-ukrainians-trust-in-zelensky-declines-trust-in-zaluzhnyi-is-high/
https://kyivindependent.com/poll-zelensky-tops-list-as-most-trusted-ukrainian-political-figure/

Various people/groups have considered what might come to pass in case the Kremlin prevails — jorndoe

Well, Ukraine is preparing it's own defensive lines, so the likely outcome is a war like the Iran - Iraq war: a kind of WW1 stalement, until one or the other gets enough materiel and resources for an operational assault.

Nonsense. What Ukraine lacked is simply the political will. If a dirt-poor North Korea can create a nuclear deterrent, obviously Ukraine could have done that far more easily with already existing material and know how. — ssu

The opinion experts on the subject, as cited by Wikipedia, as well as the common sense reasons behind those opinions is "nonsense".

No, it's not nonsense.

I did not argue that Ukraine could not develop a nuclear program, I argued that doing so would risk Russia invading / nuking Ukraine before it could complete the task.

Where you have countries developing nuclear programs, they cannot be practically invaded / nuked by the countries displeased by the development. Both Iran and North Korea are mountainous countries that are difficult to invade.

Furthermore, both Iran and North Korea are very far away from the United States. Although anti-ballistic missile systems don't mean much against a strategic strike by Russia that has a viable triad, such systems could likely deal with a strike by a rogue state.

Remember the Cuban Missile crisis, how the US reacted to nuclear missiles right on its doorstep?

Russia's concerns about nuclear missiles in Ukraine would be exactly the same and the logical choice when faced with that kind of threat that you can do something about is to lower the threat level before it becomes a problem.

Ukraine is not mountainous and is right next to Russia, so it's a totally different scenario.

You're also just skipping over the endless talk of invading North Korea (which could very likely happened); it's not like the US position was "well ... whatayagonnado". The North Korean gamble worked, but arguably just barely and the factors in its favour are a long list compared to Ukraine (China doesn't want North Korea occupied and North Korea only exists because of that Chinese policy).

Likewise the talk of invading Iran that is still ongoing today.

It would also be a difficult sell in the 1990's for Ukraine to ask Ukrainians to fight a war to defend the right to develop nuclear weapons to avoid the war that they would be currently fighting. The former Soviet countries wanted to simply Westernize and get essentially what Westerners had and live in peace with the West ... fighting each other was even farther from any ex-Soviet citizens mind.

In similar vein, no one wanted nuclear war back then, the global mood was full of hope (except maybe in Russia and Ukraine that was spiralling into a corrupt kleptocracy): the great hope was arms reduction and for humanity to pull ourselves back from the spectre of nuclear annihilation in which the peaceful dissolution of the Warsaw pact was seen as a major step in that direction and peaceful coexistence.

No one was thinking "you know what would be cool and a good thing, a lot of small states having nuclear weapons deterrence capabilities in the event larger states decide to invade them in a few decades".

Except for Mearsheimer!! Which I admit is both as prescient as it is ballsy to hold that position.

I disagree with him on this point, as bad as the war in Ukraine is: not only is nuclear war worse but increasing its probability I would argue is worse than an actual destructive conventional war.

The lack of political will in the situation at the time was to fail to fulfil the above aspirations (a failing we can attribute to peoples, factors and processes both within and without Ukraine and Russia) and create a prosperous social democracy: instead of keeping all of the corruption of the Soviet Union without any of the communist handouts while achieving an actual decrease in longevity and quality of life.

As to the subject of nonsense.

The logic of "let's very likely cause a war so as to do something to protect us from war" doesn't make any sense.

Such as "let's try to reverse engineer these nukes so as to very likely cause a war to prevent us from successfully doing so, so as to deter wars". This is the nonsense position.

Likewise, "let's try to join NATO (even though they won't have us) and thus very likely cause a war in which joining NATO would have the purpose to protect us from" likewise is nonsense.

But as Ukraine, or it's leadership at least, clearly believed in the promises from Russia (and from the Western states) in the Budapest memorandum, creating an own nuclear deterrent was out of the question. Not only would it have deeply angered Russia, the US would have been extremely angry too! — ssu

Unlikely.

People with even a little bit of political experience know these sorts of deals aren't eternal.

They got money (that they laundered a bunch to themselves and their friends) and they avoided a war in the short term. The same decision without the corruption we would likely view as just the common sense and essentially default position of every small nation that has joined the non-proliferation architecture.

Moreover, to what extent any of the Ukrainian leaders and policy analysts were confident in a perpetual peace, they certainly did not have in mind "great, we can just go ahead and join NATO" and they all could have easily explained that existing at peace with Russia would be contingent on not doing a few things.

Even if extremely corrupt, corrupt people are generally astute realists that have little trouble understanding and navigating actual reality; the trouble with corrupt kleptocrats is they put their understanding of people, systems and the world to evil purposes.

I did not argue that Ukraine could not develop a nuclear program, I argued that doing so would risk Russia invading / nuking Ukraine before it could complete the task. — boethius

Yeltsin's army had huge difficulties with Chechnya, they actually lost the first Chechen war. But any Russian invasion wouldn't have been Ukraine's problem. The West, especially the US, wouldn't have at all liked the idea. Hence Ukraine would have become a pariah state thanks to it's strange obsession of having a nuclear deterrent.

And anyway, if then this would have prevented Russia attacking Ukraine, nobody would notice it! It would already be such an incredible idea that after the quite peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia would attack and annex parts of Ukraine.

People with even a little bit of political experience know these sorts of deals aren't eternal. — boethius

Go and tell that to the Swedes, who basically dismantled their armed forces, because it wasn't anymore the Cold War era. And go tell that to the Germans. Actually many West European countries. And all those American diplomats and administration that wanted to restart the relations after Russian previous aggressions.



Only the former Warsaw pact countries and especially the former Soviet states had realistic ideas about Russia being Russia and it's weakness not being eternal. The West did write off Russia in the 1990's. They were very surprised to find suddenly Russia backing Serbia and sending it's troops to Kosovo.

Moreover, to what extent any of the Ukrainian leaders and policy analysts were confident in a perpetual peace, they certainly did not have in mind "great, we can just go ahead and join NATO" and they all could have easily explained that existing at peace with Russia would be contingent on not doing a few things. — boethius

Ukraine did want to be neutral. But as all of the East European countries starting from the Baltics, sooner or later they understood what Russia's plans would be... when it got it's act together. The Baltic states being tiny countries understood this from day one. Hence their objective to join NATO.

Meeting with veterans of the Great Patriotic War, residents of besieged Leningrad and representatives of public patriotic associations
^{— The Kremlin · Jan 18, 2023}

And here, on the Leningrad Front, representatives of many European countries participated in the siege of Leningrad and committed crimes.

Due to a certain tolerance and in order not to spoil relations, not to spoil any background of our relations with many countries, we have never spoken about this before. But this was not only in Leningrad, on the Leningrad front and during the blockade, it was everywhere. Just look at the Blue Division. Here, in Leningrad, on the Leningrad Front during the blockade, there were participants from all countries - from many, in any case.

But when you talk about the need to preserve historical memory, I have already said that I fully and completely support this. We will do this at the state level, we will do it persistently, including so that, as I have already said, nothing like this happens again.

Meanwhile, someone is deliberately oblivious to all these facts. As you may have heard, perhaps quite recently at the United Nations we proposed for voting a document condemning the glorification of Nazism. After all, 50 countries voted against it. Who could be against recognizing the glorification of Nazism as criminal? Well, what is it? This is not just some kind of historical or political amnesia. This is all being transferred here again, in our time. For what? In order to maintain such a common front based on the current political situation, put pressure on our country. So in this sense, unfortunately, little changes. This means that we must consistently defend historical truth and do what you suggest. This is what we will do. — Vladimir Putin

Putin suddenly claims that representatives of "many European countries" took part in the Siege of Leningrad
^{— Alona Mazurenko · Ukrainska Pravda · Jan 18, 2023}
(Also, the Road of Life, Finland Station. Oh, and Sisu. :wink:)

Poland Is ‘Next’ After Russia Wins Ukraine War, Putin Ally Says (Aleksey Zhuravlyov)
^{— Carley Welch · The Messenger · Jan 14, 2024}
Russia to allocate funds for search of Soviet, Imperial Russian property abroad
^{— TASS · Jan 18, 2024}
Putin Orders Hunt for Property of Russian Empire, Soviet Union
^{— Bloomberg · Jan 19, 2024}

A treasure hunt for imperial gold? :sparkle: Poland + Finland + Estonia + Latvia + Lithuania? :) Retaliation for frozen assets (and possible seizures)? :fire:

Anyway, the Baltics, Moldova, Poland, have been (and are) looking toward Moscow with some...discomfort, and looking westward with some consolation. Ukraine likewise.

A very clearheaded and insightful interview with Mark Gaelotti. Even if done by a Finnish podcaster (in English), the



Some of Galeotti's good remarks:

- There are differences between how Putin views Ukraine compared to the Baltics and then the Baltics compared for example to Finland and Sweden.
- Russia defending the rights of Russian minorities is more rhetoric than an political objective. The West ought to use the Russian minorities, Russians that are in EU member states don't have the desire to be part of Putin's Russia.
- Europe isn't so so united as it says on the matter of Ukraine. For many the security threat comes from the south.
- We don't have the debate of "Why Ukraine matters". We should.
- Ukraine fatigue is real even if officially denied, the talk of countries having limited amount of years to get their defences up is part of this.
- Even if Trump likes autocrats, he likely isn't going to do something dramatic: notice what the Trump administration actually did when in power.
- Still, if US backs away from assisting Ukraine, Europe won't fill the gap. Countries will use that as the excuse.