Live data from Hacker News

Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

reuters.com

21–30 of 241 posts

Re: Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

#22
post #18
post #10

The bigger question is "why now". Ukraine is not joining NATO or the EU any time soon. Russia has de facto annexed Crimea and its ongoing support for separatists in Donbas keeps the region unstable to its advantage. I suspect two reasons: Putin's flagging domestic support and Russia's (and to be honest, the world's) perception that America is currently so divided and weak it will be unable to offer much resistance th…

are the rest of the US allies in the world so powerless? Isn't this why we have the UN? Without the US, does the world just go back to war, death, and destruction everywhere? That seems crazy to me.

Go back to? The war, death, and destruction never stopped… we just exported it to others.

Re: Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

#23

USA annexes Hawaii, no one bats an eye. Russia annexes Crimea, everyone loses their minds.

How do I sign up to get paid to shill for Russian interests on the internet? I have no convictions and would like to get money doing what you do.

Re: Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

#24
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. and this is a view shared by prominent US national security officials, that it is the United States that has caused this crisis. https://theanalysis.news/is-nato-for-security-or-aggression-... Remember, it was the United States that broke the promise to not expand NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union. > Paul Jay >Crazy! Larry, how much of this is driven essentially, really by what domestic politics, th…

> it was the United States that broke the promise to not expand NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union This promise is a myth [1]. At best, it was an informal statement by some guy in the U.S. government [2]. This has been blown out of proportion beyond any semblance to reality by Putin's propaganda. And if it had happened, it would have been an agreement with the Soviet Union. Which does not exist. Russia, in 1994,…

Citing a blog post by the Brookings Institution is very funny to me. They were one of many think tanks in Washington that built the intellectual groundwork to justify the expansion of NATO in the first place.

Re: Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

#25
post #7
post #3

It's funny when the aggressor is "negotiating" to attack or not. The biggest bully in the region feeling "threatened" by its neighbours seeking any possible way to protect themselves from it. Like a government-level "Why are you hitting yourself?"

Crazy idea of the day: why not offer NATO membership to both Ukraine and Russia? Then if either side attacks the other, all the other members are obligated to defend against the aggressor. Entangling alliances are like abstraction. The only thing that solves it is more of it.

The USSR attempted to join NATO in the 1950s:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jun/17/russia.iantray...

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/molotovs-proposal-t...

Re: Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

#26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_and_Comprehensive_Free_Tr...

This is what this is all about. It's not so much the money but also militaristic strategic assets. Moldova and Georgia doesnt have Russian war to deal with.

Which really comes down to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base

Russia has lots of land all over the black sea. They could build a gigantic base near rostov-on-don. So why dont they? To strike from and base at Rostov would be foolish. So many tight bottlenecks to get in and out. Maybe Novorossiysk instead? but no crimea is obviously important to them. Except novo is happening. They are building a naval base there. It will take time. In probably about 10-15 years crimea will go back to ukraine and this will be all over.

What's unsaid here. Why is it so important for russia to maintain such a huge naval presence in the black sea? This fleet isn't going past istanbul. Navy isn't even useful in war anymore really. An F35 from 40,000ft is practically untouchable by the russian navy and could probably sink their entire fleet from 300km away.

So what is it? Romania? Bulgaria? Turkey? Who on the black sea is Russia so afraid of?

Re: Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

#27
post #18
post #10

The bigger question is "why now". Ukraine is not joining NATO or the EU any time soon. Russia has de facto annexed Crimea and its ongoing support for separatists in Donbas keeps the region unstable to its advantage. I suspect two reasons: Putin's flagging domestic support and Russia's (and to be honest, the world's) perception that America is currently so divided and weak it will be unable to offer much resistance th…

are the rest of the US allies in the world so powerless? Isn't this why we have the UN? Without the US, does the world just go back to war, death, and destruction everywhere? That seems crazy to me.

> Without the US, does the world just go back to war, death, and destruction everywhere?

We're in a uniquely, some argue unnaturally, peaceful period [1]. For most of human history, lords spilled blood bickering over borders.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana

Re: Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

#28
post #10

The bigger question is "why now". Ukraine is not joining NATO or the EU any time soon. Russia has de facto annexed Crimea and its ongoing support for separatists in Donbas keeps the region unstable to its advantage. I suspect two reasons: Putin's flagging domestic support and Russia's (and to be honest, the world's) perception that America is currently so divided and weak it will be unable to offer much resistance th…

I'm wondering if this all about the NordStream 2 pipeline, though I'm not sure how threatening Ukraine helps Russia's case... maybe just to show that you don't want pipelines through an unstable region.

Also, who benefits when natural gas prices go higher?

Re: Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

#29
post #2

I fully support the sovereignty of Ukraine, but I understand the Russian position from watching Prof. John Mearsheimer lectures, particularly this one: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 John Mearsheimer John Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distingui…

You can't support the sovereignty of Ukraine while also supporting Russia's hegemony over Ukraine. Ukraine has the right to defend itself against Russian aggression and to seek alliances which can help to that end. The Russian autocracy views democracy as a threat. This is really no different than Germany, prior to WW2, seeking to dominate the countries around it. Some of those countries had ethnic Germans living the…

the first part of the video by that professor, explains that ukraine is a very divided country, it's made up by two different groups of people, ukrainian-speakers and russian-speakers. So you gotta take this into account when considering what "Ukraine" wants.

> Russian security assurances aren't about trying to defend the country against an encroaching NATO, but rather trying to restore as much as possible the domination of Russia over former USSR states.

well, the video explains better than I could in one comment why this is nonsense. It 100% is all about Russian preventing a rival military base in a border country.

Re: Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war

#30

USA annexes Hawaii, no one bats an eye. Russia annexes Crimea, everyone loses their minds.

Colonialism went out of style a century ago and this whole discussion is based on the fact that Russia didn’t get that memo.
Post reply on HN