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Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

znak.com

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Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#341

Post by drran »

aa-jv wrote: post #283
drran wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have relatives in Slovakia. Never heard anything about NATO from them. Can you point out where are you finding that?

I have multiple work colleagues in Slovakia, a stones throw away from me, who are very definitely against NATO bases expanding into eastern/central Europe. I suggest you ask your relatives how they feel about NATO encroaching further and further towards Russias' borders, and what do they think about the recent NATO exercise that flew armed nuclear missiles within 20km's of Russias borders. If the tables were turned,…

NATO is not a country. WTF are you talking about?

NATO is a defensive alliance. A country can join or leave NATO alliance. Nobody forces a country to join alliance. The higher threat RF creates for others, the more other countries are wanting to join an alliance to get protection from RF threats.

I highly suspect that your colleagues in Slovakia are invented.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#342

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

rectang wrote: post #296
w_t_payne wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when the cause of that internal crisis is the rise of far-right populism (either actively funded or at least tacitly supported by Putin), then it really doesn't take much effort to put two and two together. There are no mysteries here, only evil working in plain sight.

That is one perspective. As an exercise, could you articulate a sympathetic reading of a different perspective, to the extent that someone who holds that perspective would approve of your rendering? Think of it as following Sun Tzu's advice to know your adversary. Again, the point in this context is that no matter what the crises are, the foreign influence of the US is in decline because of severe domestic distractio…

> foreign influence of the US is in decline because of severe domestic distractions

I agree that much of the domestic chaos is a distraction, and that the U.S. should be focusing on longer term existential issues that affect the whole world, but I wish more people realized how much of the distraction and chaos is intentional.

It's difficult to keep your eyes on the road when someone just tossed a beehive into the car.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#343

Post by dragonwriter »

scottLobster wrote: post #314
petesergeant wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is less about NATO deployments and more the will of NATO leadership to go to war with Russia over its more minor members This is the point of putting NATO troops in the country: if Chad from Nebraska and Juan from Madrid get shot by Boris it’ll significantly alter public/political opinion much more than if Igor gets shot by Boris. They put these troops in the Baltics so that the Russians would end up s…

And the Russians just need to surround/pin down those troops with minimal casualties while they secure the rest of their objectives. We're talking battalions, not divisions. Their practical ability to fight an invasion is limited. We didn't re-invade Afghanistan because some US soldiers were killed during the withdrawal.

> We didn't re-invade Afghanistan because some US soldiers were killed during the withdrawal.

And the failure to do that was very explicitly the basis of massive domestic criticism of the Administration; it took executive commitment to weather popular opposition to maintain the withdrawal policy.

So, while the facts you recite are accurate, they don't actually support the argument about political support you are making.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#344

Post by plandis »

aa-jv wrote: post #22
rich_sasha wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

I really doubt Americans in general dislike the Russian people. If Americans have an issue with Russia it’s with the government at large or specifically Putin and the oligarchs.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#345

Post by [deleted] »

qwytw wrote: post #302
retrac wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wars usually seem rational to the people starting them. Conceivably attainable goals for short- or medium- term political purposes. But war has a way of escalating, dragging the participants along to a fate none of them really control. As a hypothetical -- Russia does invade Ukraine and the Western forces offer substantial but indirect military support. Russia strikes at a supporting NATO military installation just m…

Japan was already fighting a massive war in China, after the US oil embargo Japan basically had no choice (besides a completely changing their geopolitical goals) they had to invade Indonesia and other oil rich European colonies in the pacific which would likely result in a war with the US, so yes, they choose relatively rational option of attacking first hoping if not to knock out US out of the Pacific but at least…

[deleted]

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#346

Post by everybodyknows »

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…

> US military’s budget is 10 times more than its closest rival

Ten times more than China's budget? Source, please.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#347

Post by rightbyte »

wongarsu wrote: post #81
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.

Russia has a military budget of 60bn, Germany and France spend 52bn each. Within the EU they are on home turf, with existing rail and road infrastructure. The EU isn't equipped to fight in Russia or to fight a nuclear war (even though France has nukes), but I don't see why the EU shouldn't be able to defend it's own territory in a conventional war.

Neither Germany or France have a conscript army. So neither can field any big numbers and it also inflates the cost of the armed forces for the comparison.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#348

Post by NicuCalcea »

medo-bear wrote: post #59

so this article is in russian/ukranian (or another language in cyrillic) and i wonder, did all people liking or commenting here really read this? as a european i tend to be very skeptical of the US involvement in eastern europe. they seem to be exploiting the enmity of some eastern european nations toward russia for own economic gain and to stop russia selling its natural resources to EU. all the while being many man…

If the US invaded another country just because it has Russian military bases, that would be wrong too. Ukraine doesn't have American bases and, even if it did, that's no reason for its neighbour to attack it. Countries have the right to determine their future without threats of occupation.

PS: The article is in Russian. As an European, I've read it.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#349

Post by bee_rider »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #331
bee_rider wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What security assurances are you talking about, specifically?

Is this some sort of weird hint that Russia is not violating anything? Or some weird hint that the US is not violating its commitment? "The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan."

I was wondering where you getting these quotes from, but I managed to find some of them in the Budapest Memorandum Wikipedia page. The provide a helpful list of the obligations as well:

--

1) Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.[16]

2) Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

3) Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics.

4) Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".

5) Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

6) Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments

--

I don't see any commitments being violated here on the part of "the West." Most of the list is about not attacking Ukraine, rather than some commitment to proactively come to their defense. Maybe we can quibble about the wording on 4) a bit... but I would imagine it only covers concrete nuclear threats.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#350

Post by rectang »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #342
rectang wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one perspective. As an exercise, could you articulate a sympathetic reading of a different perspective, to the extent that someone who holds that perspective would approve of your rendering? Think of it as following Sun Tzu's advice to know your adversary. Again, the point in this context is that no matter what the crises are, the foreign influence of the US is in decline because of severe domestic distractio…

> foreign influence of the US is in decline because of severe domestic distractions I agree that much of the domestic chaos is a distraction, and that the U.S. should be focusing on longer term existential issues that affect the whole world, but I wish more people realized how much of the distraction and chaos is intentional . It's difficult to keep your eyes on the road when someone just tossed a beehive into the ca…

> the U.S. should be focusing on longer term existential issues that affect the whole world

Should it? Many US citizens believe that the country is at risk of betraying its fundamental values and becoming something they cannot countenance. Resolving our differences will be hard.

Foreign instigators are poking an existing wound. They may be aggravating the injury, but they didn't create it.

There's no question that the long term interests of the US would be served by staying vigorously engaged in foreign affairs, including in the Ukraine. But does the US have the capability to do so when it is so riven, internally?

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