Oldsouljer said:
IMO, perhaps the best primer on why we are where we are in Ukraine. Bottom line, Biden massively screwed up.
https://thehill.com/opinion/5198022-ukraine-conflict-disinformation/
Souljer that article reads like Russian propaganda, and it takes a herculean amount of twisting and selective reasoning to just gloss over details like
Quote:
Putin responded by deploying troops to Crimea and weapons to the southeast Donbas region on behalf of ethnic Russians who felt their president had been undemocratically overthrown.
Putin "deployed" troops inside a foreign country.
Most humans call "deploying troops inside a foreign country" an invasion.
That neighboring country and conflict isn't his to militarily influence (at best) or attack. Imagine if there was a coup in England. What would the international response be if we deployed troops that began fighting England's military inside England, under the guise of supporting all the "ethnic Americans" that are there? That's an invasion and an act of war, plain and simple.
And...
Quote:
Second, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky contributed to a wider war by violating peace deals with Russia and seeking NATO military aid and membership. The deals, known as Minsk 1 and 2, had been negotiated under his predecessor President Petro Poroshenko in 2014 and 2015 to end fighting in the southeast and protect endangered troops.
No mention of the dozens of ceasefires that Russia violated in Donbas by resuming shelling and other attacks?
And...
Quote:
Zelensky instead increased weapons imports from NATO countries, which was the last straw for Putin. So, on Feb. 21, 2022, Russia recognized the independence of Donbas, deployed troops there for "peacekeeping," and demanded Zelensky renounce his quest for NATO military assistance and membership.
The idea that Zalensky increased weapons imports to protect his country because he know Putin's imperialist warmongering tendencies would soon lead to yet another invasion. Sorry that Ukraine defending itself by accumulating weapons was such an affront to its neighbor (that ultimately did invade anyway).
And finally...
Quote:
Considering that Ukraine already was existentially dependent on U.S. military assistance, if President Biden had insisted that Zelensky comply with Putin's request, it would have happened.
In other words "If President Biden had insisted that Zelensky bend over for Putin, it would have happened."
I know you've historically been more supportive of Ukraine and resisted excusing and enabling Putin more than some on this board, but this piece from the Hill reads like it was written by Tucker Carlson on Putin's dime while sitting in a luxury suite in a lavish Moscow high-rise.
We can go around and around about this, but Ukraine's "transgression" is wanting to be independent and not be attacked by Russia, and their "provocation" of Russia is nothing more than an excuse for Putin to quash a Western-style democracy that adjacent to Russia that offends his war-criming, autocrat sensibilities.
