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While Russia can indeed choose to escalate it (wait, you're breaking from your usual narrative of Russia as an innocent little angel in this whole affair) it will incur significant costs in doing so. The Kremlin is certainly not happy about this move. Considering the increased costs, perhaps a real and bona fide attempt at settlement will start to appear more appealing in comparison.
It was escalated a long time ago. The US declared its intention to acquire Georgia and Ukraine into its NATO portfolio. The first war in Georgia started soon after.
It was escalated a long time ago. The US declared its intention to acquire Georgia and Ukraine into its NATO portfolio. The first war in Georgia started soon after.
Nice alternative facts.
The irony of invading other countries to prevent them from joining a defensive alliance is apparently lost on most Russians. Only a minority of Ukrainians supported NATO membership before 2014. Now it's at least half.
The irony of invading other countries to prevent them from joining a defensive alliance is apparently lost on most Russians. Only a minority of Ukrainians supported NATO membership before 2014. Now it's at least half.
The announcements in both cases preceded the war.
What happened in Crimea, Donbass, and Lugansk is not unlike what transpired with S. Ossetia. The former Russian republic sent in troops to try to prevent the regions from breaking off after the independent republic announced their intention to join NATO.
NATO was defensive at one time, but it hasn't been ... for at least 30 years. It has maintained the initiaitive by launching recent wars in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
The irony of invading other countries to prevent them from joining a defensive alliance is apparently lost on most Russians. Only a minority of Ukrainians supported NATO membership before 2014. Now it's at least half.
"Alternative facts?"
Or you again adhering to make-believe stories? The kind you want to believe in?
Here it is, your "alternative facts" -
"...Washington’s intentions were friendly. Gorbachev could absolutely count on the Bush administration to support his perestroika and glasnost initiatives. “In a word, we want your efforts to be successful,” Baker insisted. Indeed, he continued, “if somewhere in the course of events you feel that the United States is doing something undesirable to you, without hesitation call us and tell us about it.”
By extension, there was no need for Gorbachev to trouble himself about NATO. The alliance provided “the mechanism for securing the U.S. presence in Europe,” which, Baker implied, was good for everyone. Keeping G.I.s in Europe would prevent Germany from once more becoming a troublemaker, benefiting all parties to include the USSR.
“We understand,” Baker continued, “that not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction [emphasis added].” Indeed, the proposed U.S. approach to negotiating terms for ending Germany’s division would “guarantee that Germany’s unification will not lead to NATO’s military organization spreading to the east...."
"....Later that very year German reunification became an accomplished fact. By the end of the following year, Gorbachev was out of a job and the Soviet Union had become defunct. Before another 12 months had passed, Baker’s boss lost his bid for a second term as Americans elected their first post-Cold War president. By this time, countries of the former Warsaw Pact were already clamoring to join NATO. The administration of Bill Clinton proved more than receptive to such appeals. As a consequence, the assurances given to Gorbachev were rendered inoperative.
NATO’s eastward march commenced, with the alliance eventually incorporating not only former Soviet satellites but even former Soviet republics. In effect, U.S. policymakers responded favorably to the aspirations of Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians while disregarding Russian security interests, apparently assuming that Kremlin leaders had no recourse but to concede.
As long as Russia remained weak, that may well have been the case. As if to press home the point, Clinton’s successors even toyed with the idea of inviting Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO—more or less the equivalent of incorporating Cuba and Mexico into the Warsaw Pact back in the bad old days."
What IS an irony, is that it's conservative media reporting this, not "democratic" one.
Or may be no wonder, since it's all Clinton's BS - the "corporate Democrats" you know, THAT kind.
Here is more on a subject (of "collusion" including, that is so popular now in American media and elsewhere, used by democrats against Trump now)
"There was also flagrant American “collusion” in Russian politics, particularly in Yeltsin’s 1996 reelection campaign. The Clinton administration bankrolled Yeltsin’s campaign with billions of dollars in loans through international agencies and sent a team of American experts to Moscow to advise and oversee Yeltsin’s initially failing reelection bid. That is, Washington “colluded” with Yeltsin against his presidential rivals. Later, Putin was, and continues to be, misquoted as saying that the end of the Soviet Union was “the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century.” What he actually said was that it was “one of the greatest catastrophes,” pointing to the fate of Russia in the 1990s. He was not wrong, as Cohen spelled out in articles in The Nation in the 1990s and in his book Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Russia (published in 2000 and in an expanded paperback edition in 2001). As American “advisers” encamped in Moscow and spread across the country in the 1990s, little wonder so many Russians felt they had been defeated, occupied, and plundered by a foreign power. In 1999, Clinton made clear that the crusade was also a military one, beginning the still-ongoing eastward expansion of NATO, now directly on Russia’s borders in the three Baltic states, and today knocking on the doors of two other former Soviet republics, Georgia and Ukraine. That so many Russians see NATO’s unrelenting creep from Berlin to within artillery range of St. Petersburg as “war on Russia” hardly needs any comment, especially given the living memory of the 27.5 million Soviet deaths in the war against the Nazi German invasion in 1941."
Really. The Ukrobots need to face reality. Ukraine can make it's own high quality weaponry. Corruption ensures they can't do it efficiently and therefore it's pointless. Those tank engines a few months back is another example, remember the east wall along Russias border? Millions just evaporate. What a joke. It's just silly.
Ukrainian version of the WSJ. Its so freaking hard to get real solid information about just what is going on in your average Ukrainians life though. Obviously they're surviving otherwise they would be rebelling.
IF you want the truth you most likely need to go there and see for yourself.
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