Who wins in Ukraine?

There are some issues with this article. First, the account of the ukranian revolution is neither very accurate nor balanced: generally speaking, shadowy US interference in far-away states ('color revolutions', etc) is more complicated, and a far more marginal factor than people like Putin would have you believe.

It also continues to follow the Russian line in the section where it discusses the build-up to the conflict. I think this idea of 'NATO expansion pushing into the Russian sphere' is also wrongheaded: countries get a sphere of influence when they are powerful enough to exert control over their neighbors by simple size disparity, primarily economic, but also military, to such an extent that their neighbors are simply always by default in a weaker position when they negotiate. The USSR had the economic, cultural, and military power to maintain this. The Russians don't. That Putin does not realize this is his failing, not NATO's.

The economic section is also profoundly mistaken. You talk about recessions and inflation as if the Russian economy and the US economy are comparable. They are not: the Russian economy is marginally larger than that of Spain. It is smaller than California or Texas. Any economic confrontation between the West and Russia is modulated by the fact the Russian economy is simply so much smaller: the West is basically a collection of the world's largest economic blocs, minus China and India. An economic fight between the EU and Russia would be a ridiculous mismatch. An economic fight between Russia and the entire West is so unbalanced that it may as well be a trade war between Kentucky and the rest of the US: there is simply no way that Russia can inflict a proportionate amount of economic damage to the west, and the only limit to how much damage the west can inflict on Russia is how willing they are to suffer even a tiny bit in return.

Especially because Russia was the only strong ally China had. Now all their allies are weak. And they're surrounded by hostile powers.

Russia military reputation was severely damaged. Not saying they're not dangerous, but certainly not as much as many imagined.

One of the main causes is the massive corruption in their military. China suffers from the same internal issue. No one can say whether the levels of corruption are similar, but it casts a dark shadow over China's military trustworthiness.

NATO, on the other hand, has proved capable of successfully supporting a weak country against a much greater military power without even stepping foot in battle.

Maybe the most important contributions from NATO (by NATO, read 80% the US) was in strategy and tactics. If they just had sent weapons without good strategy and tactics, the outcome would have been different.

As a person who was there in Ukraine in 2004, and in 2013-14, as a somewhat neutral observer of Orange Revolution and Euromaidan, the first paragraph already throws you an Oliver Stone -level propaganda jab. Everyone in Ukraine was well aware what political party was supported by the West or by Russia. To say that pro-western and anti-Russia attitude in Ukraine was fabricated by the West is a bit of a stretch, to say the least.

This article plays the favorite game of Russian apologists — engage in bad faith with any pro-Ukrainian argument, and in good faith with any Russian one.

It fails to account for Russian troops in Crimea (when discussing 2014 referendum), it fails to account for Russian influence in Ukrainian politics (billions of funding) and of course there is no agency of Ukrainian people, only NATO and Russia.

And of course “US invited an invasion [of Ukraine]”, sure, lets find a more apologetic way of saying “Putin invaded Ukraine”.

I think that one disadvantage though is that a key ally of theirs loses what’s left of their economic and military strength.

Thanks for reading and for sharing your experience. Much appreciated.

I'm not trying to spread propaganda. I'm doing my best to make sense of the different narratives being told by different parties. It's all we can do in these crazy times.

You have many good points. This article was not comprehensive and could have dug deeper into many reasons. I'll respond to one bit:

>To say that pro-western and anti-Russia attitude in Ukraine was fabricated by the West is a bit of a stretch, to say the least.

I never used the word 'fabricated', and I don't think I said anything that robust. I said "funded", which is different. Ukraine is a large country, and there are plenty of different political opinions and movements to pick from when supplying funding.