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Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

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Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#111

Post by vmception »

roody15 wrote: post #96

Interesting as I think we are witnessing a global shift in power to the East. China’s rise and the US’s fall from hegemony is starting to be felt in geopolitics. Russia (IMO)may simply be pressing ahead while it sees the US’s power currently diminished. The US withdraw of Afghanistan has not helped matters. It demonstrated that although the US military’s budget is 10 times more than its closest rival, this expense do…

Russia did the same thing a decade ago in Georgia and US didnt intervene. Followed by Crimea, which sparked uhhh sanctions.

And a decade before that was when the soviet union fell apart.

What time period, exactly, are you referring to that correlates with US influence waning? Russia has always been on autopilot regardless of US influence, when you look back at it.

The answer doesnt rely on talking about other ways influence shifts or trying to convince everyone to be scared of a world without US soft power omg oh noes, its about what it has to do with Russia’s expansionist actions.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#112

Post by nradov »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #65
baud147258 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For joining NATO, isn't there also a requirement on territorial integrity which makes Ukraine joining impossible as long as the Donbass situation persists?

Donbass is a diversion of attention from Crimea. It will eventually settle and return back to Ukraine, as more and more countries recognize Crimea as part of Russia. It is hard to imagine Ukraine giving up on Crimea (though it would make a lot of sense by now), so it will never join NATO and it is very unlikely that they will join EU despite promises of local politicians.

That's similar to how the Kosovo situation makes it impossible for Serbia to join the EU and NATO.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#113

Post by etrevino »

oneoff786 wrote: post #51

Question to any geopolitical buffs. The one thing I learned about Russian history is that a great deal of its history was spent trying and never succeeding to get a warm water port in that area. Is that still a big deal?

They have warm water ports, but they don't have warm water ports with unfettered access to the ocean (because Constantinople blocked them). That's not what they're after here, though, because even after the breakup of the Soviet Union they held onto some ports on the Black Sea.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#114

Post by rmind »

rich_sasha wrote: post #20
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The latter is very difficult for Europe in winter The latter is very difficult for Germany in winter. Let's call a spade a spade and stop bundling the EU27 with Germany's energy policy and geo-political failures.

There's plenty of countries heavily dependent on Russian gas, Germany being one. I get it, from Spain it looks very different, but this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_in_the_European_energy_... shows how many countries depend on Russian gas. This should have been scary to Europe for at least a decade now, but sadly wasn't.

The information in this Wikipedia page is out of date. There are quite a few new LNG terminals in the EU now which diversified the gas supply. High consumption from Russia doesn't not necessarily mean dependency, e.g. Lithuania has an LNG terminal with a capacity to supply itself and the other Baltics states, but the country buys mostly the Russian gas simply because they offer lower market price. However, Lithuania has been shipping gas from Norway, Qatar and USA. It's all free market now.

Poland and Finland also have LNG terminals with more of them being planned in other European countries. Germany, on the other hand, is still very much on the Russian gas needle.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#115

Post by sam_lowry_ »

Dolores12 wrote: post #87
lnsru wrote: post #27

There is only way for country’s protection and it’s Israel’s way where whole country is also an army. Especially for countries near unfriendly countries like Russia in this submission. Because all the treaties and documents signed by politicians are absolutely worthless. Ukraine got rid of all the Soviet nuclear weapons and got lots of promises: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Secur... Now they…

> where whole country is also an army Yeah, imagine whole Russia is an army.

That was pretty much the case for USSR in Cold War. A country can last this way for several dozens of years at the cost of depleting economic resources.

And USSR was twice as big and populous as Russia is today.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#116

Post by aa-jv »

rebolek wrote: post #41
aa-jv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans don't hate Russians as much as Americans do - probably because they've actually got Russians visiting and know that Russia doesn't really represent the threat that the American military-industrial complex needs you to believe is real in order to justify their trillion dollar misadventures and further subjugation of NATO member states into puppetry. In fact, a lot of Europeans would like to see peace made wi…

Lot of European countries have troubled history with Russia and understand what a threat (at least under Putin) they are.

And a lot of European countries have no issue with Russia, but see America as the bigger threat to world peace.

So? Which 'side' you pick is mostly a matter of national identity and how your personal views on world peace align with the military industrial complex of your own personal nation state. A lot of Europe is really sick of America's shit and want them to leave, too.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#117

Post by abcd_f »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #99
abcd_f wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine for as long as it’s not in Nato. Just like the US didn’t like Russian military presence on Cuba, they don’t want the US presence in Ukraine. It’s all fundamentally dead simple. Russia views Ukraine as a buffer country between itself and the West and will do anything to keep it that way.

> Russia doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine Their actions from 2014 until now show otherwise. Ukraine is not a part of NATO but Putin decided to grab Crimea, Donbas, and keep the military activity for over 5 years in order to destabilize the country.

Don’t misquote.

Current conflict is rooted exactly in Ukraine trying to aligning itself with the West. It would’ve been the EU first, Nato second for them. That would’ve created a massive headache for Russia, including the loss of its only warm port, hence the annexation and the invasion. And now Ukraine is in limbo, because the EU won’t touch it with a wooden pole while it is in an active conflict.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#118

Post by bitcharmer »

drran wrote: post #91
rmind wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a few points: - The Budapest Memorandum was, unfortunately, not legally binding. Not justifying the lack of support from the West, but just pointing out an important aspect. - North Atlantic Treaty is legally binding. Also, the Baltic States already host a small multi-national contingent of NATO troops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Enhanced_Forward_Presence - It is also worth noting that the EU has mutual…

> The Budapest Memorandum was, unfortunately, not legally binding. Not justifying the lack of support from the West, but just pointing out an important aspect. Yep, nobody will be sued when Ukraine will nuke RF in violation of Budapest memorandum. So what?

Since when does Ukraine have nukes? They gave it up for empty promises from the west, no?

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#119

Post by Balero »

rmind wrote: post #103
jacquesm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And therein lies the rub: the EU would not be able to do much of anything without the rest of NATO to back them up. And in spite of Europe being dragged along in many American adventures in the middle east I wouldn't count on NATO sticking together either. Way too much 'realpolitik' going on to count on that for long term stability.

You suddently jumped to conclusion that EU could not do much without NATO, but that's just your speculation. - EU is basically the third largest economy in the World. Meanwhile, Russia is about similar size economy as Italy. The combined EU military spending and capability/equipment is well above Russia's. So, in terms of economic and military power, the EU certainly has means, but see below. - Would EU have politica…

> EU is basically the third largest economy in the World. Meanwhile, Russia is about similar size economy as Italy. The combined EU military spending and capability/equipment is well above Russia's. So, in terms of economic and military power, the EU certainly has means, but see below.

It is actually the second, but only just, and China will surpass it very soon. This doesn't detract from your point at all.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#120

Post by aa-jv »

eptcyka wrote: post #31
aa-jv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans don't hate Russians as much as Americans do - probably because they've actually got Russians visiting and know that Russia doesn't really represent the threat that the American military-industrial complex needs you to believe is real in order to justify their trillion dollar misadventures and further subjugation of NATO member states into puppetry. In fact, a lot of Europeans would like to see peace made wi…

Coming from a post-soviet country, Europeans certainly have a diverse opinion of Russia, but most of it is negative. I don't see how peace could be made given their aggressive foreign policy and continued advances on all fronts that are acceptable. They're pushing their propaganda very hard across the border, and are leaning in hard on the russian speaking populations left in post-soviet countries to screw around.

> I don't see how peace could be made

Its certainly not going to be possible for as long as member citizens of Western nations think they have the moral authority to tell Russia what to do .. they really, really don't have that moral authority, especially given the last twenty years of massacring of innocent people that the West continues to sweep under the rug and justify with bleats ..

The Russian people know how many innocent human beings are massacred by American war machines every day, even if Americans don't.

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