2023/02/18

Basics regarding the Russo-Ukrainian War

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The ability of some people to perform mental gymnastics in regard to this ongoing war is astonishing. Most if not everything of what is being said and written in favour of Russia in this war is untrue or irrelevant.

So I thought it's a reasonable idea to write down the basics in a very clear and somewhat concise manner:

 

(1) Practically all countries of the world including the Soviet Union and thus its successor, the Russian Federation, have signed the Charter of the United Nations. This charter is the most important international law document regarding whether a country conducts legal violence against another or not.

It says among other things in Article 2:

  1. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
  2. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

So it's wrong to attack another country without clear UN authorisation or without exercising a right to self-defence.

(2) There was a Ukrainian independence referendum in 1991. Every single region of today's Ukraine chose independence as Ukraine (being ruled from Kyiv) over staying part of the USSR (being ruled from Moscow). Yes, Donbas and Crimea sided with Ukraine as a nation state.

There was no later referendum or election turning this around, for any region. There were shams that faked something, but no actual referendum or election about secessions or annexations of Ukrainian territory since. There is thus no legal basis and generally no reliable basis for any claim that a secession or annexation of Ukrainian territory is an expression of the people's right to self-determination.

(3) The Russian Federation recognised the sovereignty of Ukraine directly and indirectly many times, including once even signing the Budapest Memorandum, in which the Russian Federation even guarantees Ukrainian sovereignty.

(4) Russia is an empire built by subjugating, colonising and to some degree assimilating foreign peoples for centuries. They merely did the colonising mostly next door (exception being the temporary colonization of Alaska) on two continents rather than overseas. It's an extant colonial empire that pretends that no part  of itself is a colony, just as the French pretended in the 1950's that coastal Algeria was no colony.

(5) No country has any rights to enjoy a threat-free neighbourhood, or to have any buffer zone to potential threats. International law can only work if it's the same for all countries, and thus no country's sensitivities can possibly infringe on another country's sovereignty. Any demands for neutral buffer zones, spheres of influence and the like are illegitimate and carry no weight as arguments.

(6) Other countries doing wrong does not right any wrong committed by Russia, nor does that give Russia any additional rights.

(7) NATO never promised to the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation to not accept Eastern European countries as new members. There are claims about a non-written promise, but those are disputed (among others by the late Gorbachev) and carry no weight in international law. The USSR or the Russian Federation could have insisted on a written, signed and ratified form of such a promise, but they didn't.

(8) The reason for the growth of NATO is not a NATO intent to prepare for aggression against Russia, but the new members seeking security from Russian aggression.

(9) The "Partnership for Peace" program was not an additional encirclement/encroachment of the Russian Federation by the West, as was implied in some propaganda graphic: The Russian Federation itself was part of "Partnership for Peace".

(10) Even if every single Ukrainian was a corrupt anti-democratic Nazi with a swastica tattooed to the forehead, that would still give no country any justification to fire a single shot at or inside Ukraine.

(11) Russian propaganda claims about Nazism and fascism in Ukraine are ridiculous anyway, for (a) the Russian Federation under Putin checks all boxes on a fascism test itself, (b) the Russian government tolerates various big fascist groups within Russia and (c) Russian government lingo identifies every Ukrainian as "fascist" who is in favour of an independent Ukraine, which confuses patriotism with fascism. The whole Russian "fascists" line of attack is propaganda bollocks, regardless of the true anecdotes about a few people in Ukraine, a country of  about 43 million people.

(12) Russian military personnel invaded Ukraine in 2014 when Crimea was occupied.

(13) Regular Russian military personnel invaded Ukraine in the Donbas area in 2014 and Russia also subsidises and equips the secessionists there since. Many of those secessionists were not born in the Donbas and didn't live there before the invasion.

(14) Russians claim that Ukrainians regularly shot at civilians in Donbas. While that's in some cases true, it happened only because of Russia's aggression. Moreover, Russia's behaviour of targeting civilians including schools and hospitals in Syria and Ukraine takes away all moral weight from such Russian accusations.

(15) Ukraine has the legal and legitimate right to kill any Russian combatant now. Russia still hasn't got the legal right or legitimacy to shoot at anyone or anything in Ukraine because it's the aggressor. There are no legitimate targets for Russians, even the Ukrainian military is no legitimate target to shoot at for the Russian armed forces and their mercenaries.

(16) The Ukrainians overthrew a Moscow-friendly president in a revolution. The elections since were democratic and give full legitimacy and legality to the Ukrainian political leadership. To have a revolution gives absolutely no other country any right to attack. It's that simple, and any Russian opinion on that matter carries zero weight because only Ukrainian opinions matter regarding who should rule in Ukraine.

(17) To push Ukraine to ceasefire negotiations equals to aid the Russian aggressors. The Ukrainian government is convinced that such a respite would benefit the Russian aggressors more than the Ukrainian defenders.

(18) To push Ukraine to peace negotiations equals to aid the Russian aggressors. Russia has no legal or legitimate claim to get anything from Ukraine that could be a bargaining chip in such a peace treaty. Russia is the aggressor. The Ukrainian government refuses to yield anything Ukrainian to Russia. Polls indicate that it enjoys an overwhelming popular support in free Ukraine.

(19) The only ones who have bargaining chips that could possibly be given to Russia in exchange for peace are other countries, especially the U.S. and EU countries. Possible bargaining chips could be frozen Russian assets and lifting of sanctions, while yielding parts of Ukrainian sovereignty to the aggressor is not acceptable to Ukraine and would reward aggression, thus provoke further aggressions. The Western governments' attempts to achieve peace for Ukraine through diplomacy were rebuffed by the Russian government, so for now there's apparently no acceptable path to peace through negotiations.

(20) There is by now no reasonable doubt that the Russian government intended to annex all of Ukraine. The renewed attack on Ukraine in February 2022 was meant as a war of conquest. The de facto dictatorial Russian government wanted to subjugate the Ukrainian people.

(21) The Russian Federation is infringing on the sovereignty of other countries as well, most notably Moldova and Georgia. It does in both cases secure secessionist puppet regimes with regular Russian armed forces in place (in Moldova, in Georgia).

(22) No NATO member is a 'bad' ally because of supplying arms to Ukraine or because of not doing so. There's simply nothing about this in the North Atlantic Treaty nor in the accession protocols.

(23) It is a war. In fact, the Russian Federation and Ukraine have been at war since 2014 already.

(24) It's deservedly called Russo-Ukrainian War because the aggressor is customarily mentioned first when naming wars. 

(25) Corruption in a country does not in any way give any other country a right to attack. That's also in the interest of the Russian Federation, which is an oligarchic kleptocracy with a de facto dictatorship.

(26) An illegal or illegitimate government does not authorise any other country to invade in general. That's not even close to an excuse for an invasion, not even for part of an excuse.

(27) Crimea is not Russian territory. The Russian opinion on this doesn't matter. 

(28) The Donbas oblasts of Donezk and Luhansk are not Russian territory. The Russian opinion on this does not matter.

(29) It's an unacceptable concept to demand that a country under attack by a nuclear power should surrender to the aggressor to avoid nuclear war. This way the nuclear powers of the world could subjugate all other countries.

(30) The delivery of arms and munitions is not an active participation in a conflict. It does not equal 'being at war'. We have centuries of history from five continents to back this up.

(31) To oppose the delivery of arms to Ukraine is a legitimate stance (freedom of opinion, freedom of speech), but it's not really a "pro-peace" or "anti-war" stance. It's first and foremost a "pro-subjugation of Ukraine" stance. A "pro-peace"/"anti-war" stance would have to take into account that a successful war of conquest might provoke more such wars. Those who sabotage the Russian effort to subjugate Ukraine have better grounds to call themselves "pro-peace"/"anti-war" for it. 

(32) Wars get very often decided on the battlefield. Sometimes peace won by campaign victory leads to a follow-up war, but very often it does not. Meanwhile, wars that were stopped by quasi-permanent ceasefires do very often lead to cold conflicts lingering for generations, which slowly poisons relations, culture and governments (examples Korea, Bosnia, Near East, partially also Cyprus and China).

TBC



S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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36 comments:

  1. Thanks for this, good communication. Please do continue as further points arise.

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  2. Thanks for point 32), especially the last part, my point totally on this war. I do not like the actions of the US and other NATO countries in the past but this do not means that Russia can do wathever they want now. A successfull Russia in this war is the worst case scenario. More agressions to come in a near future and maybe against a NATO member. So WW3 or the end of NATO.

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  3. It would be interesting to read your take on possible US involvement in the Nord Stream attack and the German government stance in this.
    Is any of this plausible or completely false.
    Who did it? And what were there motivations?

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    1. IIRC I blogged at the time that I suspect the usual suspects (that would be the U.S.).

      The required resourced are so small that I could pull it off with 500,000 €, a diver, an open seas skipper and access to decent explosives & fuse. Basically, Liechtenstein could have done it. We don't know.

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    2. Correction; most likely I did not blog it, I wrote a tweet or two.

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    3. Excellent overview of basic facts and more!

      Thanks a lot, Firn

      Delete
  4. Hallo Sven, danke für die jahrelange Arbeit, die Du in diesen Blog steckst. Ich folge Dir seit ca. 2008. Nur, Du solltest wirklich aufhören zu lügen, das tut deiner Arbeit nicht gut und untergräbt Deine Legitimität vollständig! Viele Grüße und ... bitte nicht weiter so!!

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    1. Beweise doch mal eine dieser 'Lügen'.

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  5. Clever! Die Antwort hätte ich auch gegeben. Du weißt ganz genau, dass deine Kommentarfunktion diese Möglichkeit nicht bietet. Aber von mir aus gerne, jederzeit! Es ist tragisch, wenn ein mental ewig-gestriger "Kalter Krieger", dem das geliebte Feindbild im Osten nicht abhanden kommen will, sich mit unhaltbaren Behauptungen ein geradezu wahnhaft verklärtes Geschichtsbild zurechtlegen muss. Aber so kennen wir euch Wessis seit 30 Jahren! Weißt du noch, als diese fiesen Russen ohne jeden Grund, aus reiner Boshaftigkeit und völlig unprovoziert die armen Berliner blockiert hat um sie auszuhungern?? Ich denke mal, die vertragswidrige Währungsreform im Westen, die ökonomisch die ganze SBZ ausgeblutet hätte - was letztlich der Grund für die Operation war - hatte bestimmt nichts damit zu tun, RICHTIG?? Oder weißt du noch, als diese fiesen Russen ohne jeden Grund, aus reiner Boshaftigkeit und völlig unprovoziert Atomraketen auf Kuba stationiert hatten?? Ich denke mal, die nuklear bestückten Jupiterraketen in der Türkei, direkt an der Grenze zur UDSSR hatten bestimmt nichts damit zu tun, RICHTIG???
    Und weißt du noch, als im Februar 2014 eine Vereinbarung zwischen dem Maidan und der Janukowitsch-Regierung unter Ägide von Didier Burkhardt unterschrieben wurde .... HOPPLA ... wie ging es weiter???
    Aber ist schon gut! Für den anderen einfältigen Pöbel, der dir hier folgt, bist du immer noch gut genug! Das Problem ist nur, am Ende wird abgerechnet - und dieser Tag ist für Europa nicht mehr fern!
    Übrigens, auch deine militärische Einschätzung der SMO ist absoluter Blödsinn und zeigt, dass du ein wahrer Schüler westlicher Militärschulen bist. Geschenkt, das ist nicht deine Schuld! VG Roman

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    1. Ich stelle fest, es wurde keine Lüge aufgezeigt und nichts Relevantes bezüglich der (fehlenden) Rechtmäßigkeit der russischen Kriegführung gegen die Ukraine genannt.

      Stattdessen wurden ein mangelnder Fokus auf das Thema und viel Leidenschaft signalisiert.

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    2. 'SMO' lol;
      wie kannst du erwarten dass irgendwer dich ernst nimmt wenn du nicht mal die Eier hast den Krieg beim Namen zu nennen. Aber klar, das Denken übernimmt halt der Putin für dich.

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  6. Congrats, a very interesting and complete point-of-view on this subject! Allow me to comment your points:
    (1) By those exact standards, The U.S. is by far the world leader in U.N. charter violations, and it has done that with total impunity. Can’t you see the hypocrisy in trying to apply those rules to other countries?
    (2) 1991 was 32 years ago. Back then no one had the least interest in being ruled from Moscow, as it had become a failed state. In more recent regional elections you can clearly see that’s no longer the case: Western Ukraine is pro-Kyiv, and Eastern Ukraine is pro-Moscow, and this happens due to various historic, political, economic and cultural reasons. Let’s not forget that the people's right to self-determination is always ‘illegal’ to someone, including when the U.S. decided to secede from Great Britain.
    (3) The Russian Federation doesn’t seem at all interested in not recognizing Ukraine sovereignty nor occupying all of its territory. But it does seem very interested in protecting its military bases, its business investments and its pro-Russian population situated in Ukraine territory.
    (4) All empires were built by subjugating, colonising and to some degree assimilating foreign peoples for centuries. One can even argue that the U.S. pretends that Mexico and other Central American countries are no colonies, but their degree of sovereignty is limited to the point that we all know who is in charge of that region.
    (5) For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that Mexico and its democratically elected government decide to make a commercial and military agreement with China that would allow Chinese missiles to be deployed near the U.S. border. Does the demand for a neutral buffer zone, or the idea of a sphere of influence still sound illegitimate and baseless? Have you ever heard of the Cuban missile crisis?
    (6) I agree. But you definitely lose any kind moral high-ground when you criticize others.
    (7) The USSR / Russian Federation lost the cold war and wasn’t in a position to make such demands. Nevertheless, if NATO really wanted to secure peace in Europe, it would stop its expansion to the East and extinguish itself, since the Warsaw Pact was no longer a military threat.
    (8) If the intent wasn’t preparing for aggression against Russia, then why NATO decided to systematically ‘conquer’ terrain while approaching Russian borders? Are the new members seeking security from Russian aggression, or are the new members forcing Russia to take a more aggressive stance?
    (9) In its essence, the "Partnership for Peace" is just a letter of intentions, and the “U.N. peacekeeping operations”, as well as the “European Peace Facility” are just curious euphemisms meaning “War with U.S. command-and-control”.
    (10) I agree. And that very same argument makes it very difficult to justify U.S. direct and indirect intervention in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, etc.

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    1. @amplexo
      (1) https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-messed-up-international-disorder.html
      (2) as mentioned, no real referendum or vote since supports the secession case
      (3) bullshit
      (4) see #6
      (5) see #6
      (6) I don't. See #1 this comment
      (7) No, the new members enjoy peace due to NATO membership, while Ukraine doesn't for lack of it.
      (8) bullshit, no conquering. New members explicitly sought security, and Russia has jack shit justification for aggressive anything
      (9) Partnership for Peace was not an encroachment fo Russia as Russia was part of it, period.
      (10) see #6

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    2. What I meant was that we, western ‘democracies’, have lost our moral high ground a long time ago. NATO behaves like a mafia, but in a larger scale. If you don’t pay your tribute, certain things might happen to you… if you step out of line, we might destroy your infrastructures… Russia was initially part of the PfP, but only on paper. I have no recollection of any joint military exercises with Russia.

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    3. Nonsense. NATO/Americans dealt with some troubles/troublemakers, but weren't aggressive for the purpose of extracting tribute.
      We're not even forcing Switzerland or Ireland to stop their bullshit that costs our treasuries billions every year. Morocco still keeps West Sahara occupied and is still left alone. We didn't even do anything about Saudi Arabia after the majority of 9/11 terrorists were Saudis.
      NATO attacked Yugoslavia when patience ran out after years of atrocities and ensured that Ghaddaffi loses the civil war after his 30+ years history of tyranny and annoying the West (up to a missile attack on Italy, which was ignored by NATO).
      https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-libyan-scud-attack-on-lampedusa-and-the-italian-retaliation-against-gaddafi-that-never-was/

      And again, #6. it matters jack shit what NATO does. This topic is about the Russia-Ukraine War and my patience with whataboutism is running out. I'm not inclined to provide an arena for those who throw distraction shit at a wall in hope that something sticks.

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  7. (11) There many countries that check various boxes on a fascism test, including some we catalogue as ‘democratic’. Saudi Arabia for example, would probably get a highest score on that test, but the U.S. never felt any urge to impose ‘freedom and democracy’ in that country. I wonder why…
    (12) Russian military personnel has been continuously present in Crimea for centuries. Russia has one of its main naval bases in Sevastopol, serving as the main base for its Black Sea Fleet.
    (13) The exact same can be said about whatever nation financing and arming the neo-Nazi paramilitary nationalists in Ukraine. Many of those nationalists are mercenaries not born in the Donbas that didn't live there before, and their job was to harass, persecute and shoot anyone showing any type of pro-Russian inclination (including of course speaking Russian).
    (14) As stated in the point before, it’s hard to know which causes which: was it Ukrainian aggression that led to Russian aggression? Or vice-versa? Or both?
    (15) How can one side have the legal and legitimate right to kill while the other doesn’t? that just doesn’t make sense and / or it’s completely irrelevant at the moment.
    (16) I agree. The Ukrainians overthrew a Moscow-friendly president-puppet in a revolution. But since all revolutions are by definition illegal, and it’s very debatable if the elections since then can be considered democratic, the full legitimacy and legality of the current Ukrainian political leadership is a little shaky. That legitimacy was recognized by some countries interested in having their own Ukrainian puppet, but that doesn’t mean all countries did the same (Taiwan is good example of the same problem). If only Ukrainian opinions matter regarding who should rule in Ukraine, the country would already been dismantled and divided into two parts (like what happened to Czechoslovakia).
    (17) To push Ukraine to ceasefire negotiations equals to de-escalating a conflict that is pushing Europe to a World War III.
    (18) To push Ukraine to peace negotiations equals to saving the Ukrainian population from being used as pawns in a conflict that, no matter whom you think is the aggressor, has done great harm not only to the Ukrainian people, but to the security and stability of Europe as a hole.
    (19) For me it seems pretty obvious that Russia would accept a peace treaty that guarantees a neutral buffer zone near its borders and direct access to its naval base in Crimea by land. I would bet they would even abdicate their control of the nuclear power plants and high-tech factories in Ukrainian territory.
    (20) There’s no indication at all that the Russian government intended to annex all of the Ukraine. They could’ve done that in the first 72 hours of the conflict given their military superiority but clearly chose not to. They stopped their advance once the pro-Russian regions were occupied.

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    1. (11) Irrelevant. The Russian blathering about Ukrainian Fascists is hypocritical nonsense and no excuse for anything, period.
      (12) Irrelevant. See #2 and #3
      (13) Irrelevant. they aren't invading any country.
      (14) Bullshit, there was no Ukrainian aggression against Russia.
      (15) Read again. Aggressors have no right to kill their victims of aggression. Defenders have a right to kill all aggressors.
      (16) Russia doesn't get to enforce Ukrainian laws in Ukraine, period. Your claim about hypothetical division is entirely unsubstantiated nonsense due to #2.
      (17) read again, and that WW3 talk is Russian scaremongering propaganda bullshit. Ukraine attacks nobody, it's only Russian actions that risk escalation.
      (18) Bullshit. They want to defend themselves. Russian propaganda blathering about 'pawns' is meaningless.
      (19) Bullshit. Official Russian position looks very different.
      (20) Bullshit. In case you believe that bullshit; wake up and start paying attention.

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    2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    3. The comment was deleted because of outright lying disinformation. I only read half of it, and that was more than anyone should.

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    4. Do me a favour and just delete all my comments. This way you can keep your blog ‘sanitized’ from what you call distraction, disinformation and whataboutism. That would make me feel satisfied because it would prove you have no valid counterarguments. You have an opinion, just like me, but less sustained than mine. You, for example, want to believe that people in Yugoslavia are generally thankful for NATO’s intervention. Your beliefs do not match reality but who cares, right? It’s like helping an old lady cross the street, although she had to be dragged and actually lives on the other side. Your intentions are good and that’s good enough.

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    5. You make up shit again.

      https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2015/11/moderate-pacifism.html

      I need no 'couterarguments'. I wrote a list of 32 facts. Opinions about facts don't matter. Facts are facts.

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  8. (21) The puppet regimes with regular Russian armed forces in place in Moldova and Georgia are very similar to the situation lived in South Korea, Japan, and even Germany, since these governments tend to follow orders coming from the U.S. and seldomly confront their master.
    (22) NATO is not (and has never been) a partnership in the full sense of the word. The U.S. is the leader of the band, spends more in armament than any other country in the world, uses NATO as a tool to affirm its dominion over certain countries, and in return offers them military protection.
    (23) I agree.
    (24) I agree, but I’m not sure that is relevant at the moment. As a reminder, no one calls World War III the German-Polish war.
    (25) I agree.
    (26) I agree.
    (27) It’s not a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of fact. In Crimea most people speak Russian, they work in Russian companies and Russia has one of its most important and strategic military bases this region. It’s like saying the American opinion does not matter on Panama.
    (28) Same as the above.
    (29) I agree. And as far as I know, no nuclear power has ever used that card to subjugate a country (except the U.S. with Japan). But don’t you think its fair game to use nuclear power as a deterrent / last resort if a nuclear power attacks another nuclear power?
    (30) The delivery of arms and munitions might not be considered an active / direct participation in a conflict, but you surely can’t call it a neutral stance.
    (31) A "pro-peace"/"anti-war" stance would be to de-escalate, negotiate and avoid any attempt to humiliate or ostensibly disrespect your opponent. These are all things that NATO, the U.S. and Europe in general weren’t able to do in this last decade. Mainly because what’s really at stake is not the lives of the Ukrainians, but who controls Europe’s energy resources.
    (32) The terms armistice, ceasefire, truce and suspended hostilities are used interchangeably in practice. Ceasefires are often a seen as a first step for belligerents to enter into negotiations and find opportunities for more sustainable peace. Korea, Bosnia, Palestine, Taiwan, are just examples of peace processes that stopped or haven’t finished yet, usually because there are foreign powers interested in maintaining the area in conflict.

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    1. (21) Bullshit. South Korea welcomes American presence, Moldova and Georgia don't welcome Russian presence.
      Same with Japan and (West) Germany after initial actual occupation following wars they started (which Moldova and Georgia didn't).
      (22) Irrelevant even if it was true.
      (27) Talking Russian doesn't mean being pro Russia. I have a Ukrainian ex-girlfriend who would volunteer to hammer this into your brain. With a hammer.
      Also, see #2 and #3
      (28) ditto
      (30) irrelevant. I countered the nonsense opinions that proclaim that arms deliveries = being a war party
      (31) Nonsense. Europe doesn't look east for energy any more, it looks south. And the only way for the West to de-escalate in this war now is to help Ukrainians to destroy Russian arms and troops before they shoot even more.

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    2. Just because you believe ‘American military presence is welcome’ that doesn’t mean everyone in the world shares your beliefs. Don’t project your ideas in others. I’m obviously not saying speaking Russian equals being pro-Putin. I’m saying that many people in substantial parts of Ukraine share a common culture, language and economic interests with Russia. Europe now has to ship natural gas from the U.S. thanks to the fact that the U.S. decided to sabotage a vital European infrastructure (Nordstream) in an unprecedented act of war against its allies. If Europe is looking south for alternatives, why do you think gas prices soared? According to your brilliant theory, to de-escalate you first need to escalate… ;)

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    3. Me not having 100% proof that something is welcome works also on you not knowing something is not welcome. Congrats, you admitted that your point is unsubstantiated and irrelevant.
      Culture and language are irrelevant. Germany doesn't get to annex Austria, either.
      And again, I know a Ukrainian woman who volunteers to hammer into your brain that hardly any Russian-speaking Ukrainians don't want to be ruled by Putin.

      It's not proven that the U.S. sabotaged Nordstream and European LNG imports come from many more places than just the U.S.. And that topic means jack shit to the topic of the blog post anyway.

      @amplexo; one more effort to distract, disinform or any hint of whataboutism and your comment will be deleted.
      I won't let you muddle the waters with shit until nobody who reads the comments can see the blog posts' points any more.

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  9. The reason for the growth of NATO is its self preserving intent resulting in provocations and aggression. Evidenced by wars of NATO after 1990

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    1. That's unrelated.
      The new members joined for security.
      The Western establishments got bored and concerned about "relevance" of the military-industrial complex and got adventurous, including the aggression against Yugoslavia and the air war over Libya.

      Your comment included in no way any kind of reasoning or evidence for a causality between expansion and the interventions.

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  10. I think most of your points are correct but what is the end game you want NATO or Germany to play in this case? The problem is that for Russia this conflict is probably more important than for the US and that most of the world population and most of the world economy either want the war to end ASAP or even support Russia to a certain degree. This war also puts strain on NATO because Turkey is blocking Sweden and Finland and these conflicts tend to grow - the bigger the alliance the harder it is to find common ground and be actionable as a whole. In my view, the US is losing its grip on the world economy and their influence is no longer tenable because at the end of WW2 they had half of the worlds GDP and now they have 15 percent or so. China might throw in their industrial power to prevent Russia from losing, so what should NATO do in that case? Russia has escalation dominance because this takes place right on their borders. If they shoot down each others satellites and cut undersea cables, it could leave China a sole space and surveillance great power. I think the US neocon strategy is to solidify dominance over closest allies and deny their rivals opportunities to expand influence in places which the US abandons or can longer support and control. They need an exit strategy from a hegemonic position so they use scorched earth policy in places they can no longer control economically and politically in a peaceful manner, and dig in with their closest allies, some of which might turn away from the US in the end anyway, like Japan or Germany, and start to pursue their own imperialist agendas again. So, in a way, I am rather glad that Germany is still "kept down", as Lord Ismay put it. I would not be surprised if Olaf Scholz phone was wiretapped - and with him knowing about it.

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    1. It seems that NATO/EU don't need to do more than lifting a little finger to counter Russia, as it forced a 30+ million people nation to fight for its survival.

      NATO doesn't need to be capable of foreign policy action. It's a defensive alliance, not supposed to be an adventurous great power.

      Neocons are not in control.

      The UNGA vote on the Ukraine conflict shows that the West is aligned with almost all countries of the world on the matter. No scorched earth and stuff.

      Germany has no imperialist agenda. If anything, the current foreign politicians prefer feminist ideology foreign policy. The German and Japanese grand strategy is prosperity for all through domestic economic prowess. We just need good trade relations, no dominance abroad.

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    2. 1. So you think NATO should continue lifting a little finger until Russia loses Donbass and Crimea? Is the current volume of asisstance enough or should it be restructured or enhanced beyond current volume of arms, munitions, money, military contractors, intelligence, surveillance and target acquisition? If Stoltenberg or his successor (Boris Johnson) told you it was vital to further expand the assistance in order to achieve victory along the lines of your point number 32, which of these would you approve of? Fighters, bombers, long range ballistic missiles, nukes?

      2. NATO article number 1 prohibits use of force and threat of force. NATO itself broke this.

      3. NATO article number 5 says each member can, in case of another member being attacked, assist the other party to the extent the party deems appropriate. 4. NATO attacked several countries outside of its boundaries. The only time article 5 was invoked was a phoney call to arms after 9/11 which was not an attack of a state actor, if you do not count Saudi Arabia. So NATO never in practice worked as a defensive alliance, only worked outside its territory. So in what world is it defensive?

      4. UNGA resolution is just that - a resolution. If you want to get a clearer picture, have a look which countries sanctioned Russia and which of those countries circumvent the sanctions anyway.

      Germany has always had an imperialist agenda, since its very foundation by blood and steel. Following the WW2 it was just temporarily disabled. Gradually, Germany works to rearm itself, deploy troops outside its territory etc. Japan is doing the same thing. The US-imposed control can hardly last forever. How many years did it take Germany to turn into a dictatorship? Germany became a de facto dictatorship under Bruning and it took 3 more years to appoint Hitler. A similar scenario is entirely possible in Germany or any other country which, for example, could be deprived of markets for almost half of its GDP that it exports.

      5. The war in Ukraine is a primary focus of the neocons - that is the Kagan dynasty mafia. Most of the news from the war in the western outlets come from Institute for the study of war headed by Kimberley Kagan whose husband is a brother of a husband of Victoria Nuland lol. Nuland had her eyes on Ukraine since the 1990s while it is true there are other factions - for example Sullivan and Burns would prefer to offer Russia 20 percent of the Ukrainian territory in order to focus on China instead, at least according to a recent article by Neuer Zürcher Zeitung.

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    3. Discussions in a blog seem sometimes difficult if people don't want to explore, but come here with preconceived notions and want to convince, plus Russia pays for such stuff.

      The US holds about 25% in nominal GDP, so they can buy a quarter of the stuff produced globally. Together with their allies, they hold a majority of the nominal GDP. In terms of GDP PPP, the US is estimated at 15%, but that's an irrelevant metric, because they can use their money to import. GDP data for less democratic countries is less reliable and usually inflated. GDP correlates with nightly light emissions in more democratic countries such as the West or Ghana. In authoritarian countries like China the real GDP according to nightly light emissions is only 30-40% of the official figure. And China is a huge chunk, why GDP PPP of the US is estimated so low, when in corrected terms US world share of GDP PPP is closer to 20% and the share of nominal GDP about 33%. So the US is very far from being dethroned as the superpower as long as they keep their alliance together. Japan and Europe are more dangerous potential threats than China. And a second and third Trump presidency could realize that potential.

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    4. hey, you can do various mental gymnastics to avoid admittance of the fact that global gravity center of GDP is moving back to where it was for thousands of years before the rise of the west in the 19th century which culminated in 1945. The times when 500 soldiers could control whole countries with Maxim guns is over and the global South is closing the technological gap. I am not saying the US is anywhere close to losing a superpower, great power or whatever power status. In fact it has numerous advantages over other powers in terms of resources, geography etc. It also has brighter demographic outlook than Germany, Japan, Russia or China. What I said is that it wont be able to project power over the globe anymore without serious opposition. Russia and others can do the same the US and its allies did with impunity, and get away with it, at least in relation to the so called rules-based order. G20 is now more important than G7 and there are rising complaints on the format of UN Security council for being obsolete. I am not saying the pax Americana was any worse than what might be to come, in fact it will probably be much worse and possibly could lead to end of organized human life on this planet, catastrophic depletion of resources or both. But that is hardly a reason to spill sand to ones eyes in order to avoid uncomfortable truths. The Russian invasion is just a start, Turko-Greek war could be next.

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    5. 1. You lost sight of what you wrote about and I don't play along with meandering the topic. These are comments, and they should be about the blog post, not about wildly different stuff.

      2. #6 applies. BTW, I criticized the habitual violation of article 1 many times. You chose that one mil blog worldwide where the blogger does so to come up with that point.

      3. Utterly irrelevant to the topic.

      4. This is bullshit. You don't have the slightest clue of German foreign policy, apparently.

      5. It doesn't mean jack shit these days what neocons think. Your comment creates a narrative in which Ukraine is a playing ball of Western foreign politicians.
      Fact is, Russia is waging an aggressive war of conquest against Ukraine, and the Ukrainians chose to defend their freedom. The opinions and intents of foreigners mean nothing to this fact. Westerners do assist Ukrainians to defend themselves. For what reason is only relevant in regard to whether the West assists enough to help Ukraine expel the invaders soon.

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  11. Youre arrogant a

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  12. These are a lot of really bad takes. The UN fundamentally doesn't matter, all the different treaties and pacts that this or that country signed don't really matter. What matters at the end of the day is the real balance of powers between countries and their ability to pursue their interests. If country A acts against the interests of country B then conflict starts, small or large. In order to minimize conflict countries must act with reciprocity towards each other. The refusal to do so over the decades has largely led to this unnecessary war breaking out. This conflict should and could have have been solved via negotiations but the oligarchs knew they wouldn't be footing the bill for any of this so now here we are

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