I wonder when Russia will stop pretending that EU does not exist and will start talking to it like to equal and start negotiating with EU, not with remote USA which are trying to retreat from conflict.
Maybe Russia should recognize that EU has its own sphere of influence and Russia should respect it - so when is Russia going to demilitarize Kaliningrad, because having a military base so deep in EU is unacceptable?
Russia and the EU are different kinds of systems. Russia has an army and a history of invading countries. The EU doesn't have an army and promotes free trade and democracy.
European part of NATO without USA does have this capability.
However my point is that EU is bankrolling Ukraine and keeping it in the fight see 90 Billion EUR loan to Ukraine few days ago. Pretending that Russia does not need to negotiate with EU because EU does not have military branch yet is just being arrogant and stupid.
Russia did all of that, the problem is that the EU (just like the US) has never respected Russian interests and expanded its own sphere of influence as far as it could. Until Russia thought that enough is enough.
I have suspected Putin is being played by Trump's "peace deal" on Ukraine - using it the US has already got Putin to back off from aiding and supporting Iran, which has hurt it. And now Russia (and China) has lost some influence in Venezuela too. Meanwhile Russia still has a war raging on (which it will of course win but not anytime soon) as American western allies in Europe continue to obstruct the peace process. Just hope there isn't any political missteps from either side that accidentally triggers World War 3.
> Meanwhile Russia still has a war raging on (which it will of course win but not anytime soon)
Russian goal is to control whole Ukraine like they control Belarus. This is not achievable. Not with the current state of Russian logistics or state of Russian economy.
One of the reasons why is Russia struggling is absurdly arrogant denial of reality. Why they are negotiating with USA, which has more and more marginal role in the whole conflict and not addressing the blue elephant in the room, European Union, which is bank rolling Ukraine and arming it?
Presumably, if they were successful, at some point we Europeans would also go in and start bombing, so it's not like they can actually hope for a true breakthrough or taking Kiev or anything like that.
No, you can't because that would trigger World War 3. Any attack on Russia, by NATO or any European state, would trigger a retaliation from Russia. It would also trigger Russia's military alliance with China and other countries, who would also join the war. This is the reason why NATO or any of the European nation is unwilling to join the war directly, and only helping Ukraine with money, armaments and equipments (which unfortunately isn't enough as Russian economy and military is stronger).
I am an Indian, and unlike some of you westerners I don't perceive this through the value-based filters ("Russia evil, west good") that you view the war from. For us from the Global South, what is happening in Ukraine is just pure interest-based politics between the superpowers, where Ukraine is the victim (due to the fault of its own leaders) between Russian and western superpowers.
Ukraine's founding document, the 'Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine', Article IX states:
“The Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic) solemnly proclaims its intention to become a permanently neutral state in the future, one that does not participate in military alliances and adheres to the three non-nuclear principles: not to receive nuclear weapons, not to manufacture or acquire such weapons.”
Joining NATO clearly violates this.
Thus, the major Russian goal in Ukraine is to punish Ukraine for breaking its promise to be a neutral country that would never endanger Russian security (a commitment that was also guaranteed by the Ukrainian constitution till pro-western Ukrainian leaders captured power undemocratically). This has been done by invading Ukraine, annexing Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine (to provide a land corridor to Crimea). (Crimea has Russia's only warm-water port and allows it to extend its influence to other neighbouring regions. NATO access to it would have crippled Russian Navy and Russian geopolitical strategies). Ofcourse, this war is illegal - but for superpowers, might has always been right. This goal of breaking up Ukraine to punish it has been nearly achieved as Russia has already captured 20% of their territory (Crimea + nearly all of Eastern Ukraine). Their secondary goal now is to prevent Ukraine from having a large army, joining NATO and ensuring Russia gets back its foreign reserves from the west (or capture more Ukranian territory, in lieu of it, if the west decides to keep their money).
Ukraine has neither the money, the manpower or the weaponry to prevent this unless NATO or EU joins the war (which it will not do so).
The major goals of the western superpowers (America, France and UK) was to ensure that Russia does not develop good political and economical relations with Europe as then Russia would compete in their Spheres of Influence in Europe. The Anglo-Americans especially needed Russia as a villain because without Russia as an enemy, NATO becomes irrelevant. Indeed, if European relations with Russia improved to the point of economic and military alliance, the possibility of a European army, with Russia in it, would have been a grave threat to the US. Already, American oil and gas industry were feeling the pinch of competing with Russia in Europe. Dangling NATO membership (which the west knew would never realistically happen because of Russian opposition) and engineering a civil war in Ukraine through the pro-western and pro-Russian Ukrainian leaders ensured Russia was sufficiently provoked to attack Ukraine. Russia can now be vilified and the current and next generation of Europeans will grow up hating Russia. This "generational hatred" thus sabotages any possibilities of the ties improving between Europe and Russia for the next few decades. Using the war, they have now been able to sway Sweden and Finland to give up neutrality and join NATO, which was another major goal of theirs - with Sweden and Finland in NATO, the Arctic Council is now fully NATO dominated, against Russia. This now makes it easier to curtail Russia's influence and vision for the Arctic region, where Russia is planning to build a new maritime route that would challenge the maritime powers of the west (mainly the US). Russia's Arctic vision (The Great Game in the Arctic: Why the region is the next flashpoint between superpowers - https://archive.md/sJ0fj ) is why Trump (and the US, in general) is so obsessed with Greenland. Other secondary goals including capturing Ukraine agricultural economy etc.
Russia and western superpowers have always known that the end result would always be a divided Ukraine.
If the Russians came to your part of Indian and started killing everyone to take their land justifying it with some BS about how you might have been thinking about NATO would you say there's no good and bad there and they are entitled to do that and NATO are equally to blame because the Russians claimed you'd thought about them?
And re. Russia will of course win - I wouldn't be to sure about that one. Go bankrupt and collapse is another likely outcome. See Russia after the Japan war, after WW1 and after Afghanistan.
So what? What binding force do you think this Declaration has, and on what basis do you ascribe it that force? (Also, factually, Ukrainian never joined NATO, and was not pursuing NATO membership when the Russo-Ukrainian war began with the Russian invasion in 2014.)
That's a nice counter-narrative to pretty much everything I've seen - one of my favourite examples [0]:
> She tells the story of Putin “trolling” Mr Trump by saying that he was such a great supporter of Israel that “maybe they should just name the country after you” – to which the US president, oblivious to the sarcasm, said, “Oh no, that would be a bit too much.”
Maybe Russia should recognize that EU has its own sphere of influence and Russia should respect it - so when is Russia going to demilitarize Kaliningrad, because having a military base so deep in EU is unacceptable?
reply