Russia won the Cold War

Neither Georgia nor Ukraine are members of NATO. Georgia had cooperating agreements with NATO and wished to join because they too were threatened by Russia. When the US and Poland suggested that Georgia get fast tracked for membership the rest of the alliance overruled them, not the other way around.

Russia responded by triggering a crisis in the Georgian breakaway Republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, supporting them militarily then launching an invasion of Georgian territory on the pretext of defending these enclaves.

And isn't it interesting that you are rooting for Russia's invasion openly here?

No, that's not the reason. Georgia has a 900km border with Russia. The three Baltic states that are already in NATO have an 800km border with Russia. Norway another 200 km shared border. Poland 300 km of shared border. Turkey nearly 500 km of shared border. Russia already is surrounded by NATO when they invaded Ukraine the first time in 2014.

Ukraine however was democratic, and had a large ethnic Russian population, and they couldn't have a successful western style democracy in the heart of their former culture. After all, Kievan Rus founded the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. Then there's the geopolitical considerations. The primary oil pipelines went through Ukraine. Russia's foremost foreign policy objective for 300 years was a warm water port, the only one they have was in Crimea which they now had lost. Then there was the foundaries of Ukraine that were a large part of their former ship production, the grain surplus that is one of the largest in the world, and the discovery of vast natural gas, oil and mineral reserves - which just happen to be in the area that Russia first conquered.

It's about keeping a Ukrainian state, especially a western fairing one, from becoming a potential rival. Annexing Ukraine solved most of Russia's problems. Leaving them to grow as a successful democracy was a grave threat. None of the MANY other NATO states near Russia were as full of as much reward or potential peril to the Russian administration in power.

Pretty much all the rest of it is just the same Putin dong slurping propaganda. But this one is worth mentioning:

The Ukrainian parliament overwhelmingly voted to establish closer ties with the EU, 315-24. The Russian puppet Yanukovych had originally signed accession papers for closer economic ties to the EU. He instead backed out and announced he was furthering ties with Russia, and to do so overrode the 2004 Ukrainian Constitution.

The result was a massive protest that gripped the country for days, the Euromaidan protests. This led to the Ukrainian parliament voting to remove Yanukovych 328-0. Yanukovych appealed to Russia for aid, but the popular response was overwhelming, and he fled the country to live in a dacha at Putin's expense. His own party repudiated him and said it was appropriate that he had fled to his masters in Russia.

It is truly Russian propaganda to suggest such an overwhelming response in unity against closer ties to Russia is only due to Nazis. It's quite frankly laughable.

And then this bit of nonsense.

Funny how cowardly your lot is. Russia keeps threatening nukes because they don't have any other plays. We've seen US and Russian pilots shooting each other down in Korea while UN troops duke it out with the PLA of China. That didn't cause a nuclear war. The US directly challenging the Soviets with the blockade of Cuba didn't start a nuclear war.

But now the US not even having troops in theater will? Don't be absurd.

Right, I wrote a thousand-word post on this but I'm "just trolling".

So is mine. You're the one who posted lazy cop-outs like "half truths", not me.

Feint. One of the oldest military tricks in the book. And it worked pretty well.

No. You allege Russian guilt as if it were obvious fact, but you know only what you've been fed. You don't really know.

Both could have been either side. Of course, bad things are always done by both sides in any war.
But ask yourself this: why would Putin have gone to considerable trouble to describe Ukrainians as the Russians' Slavic Orthodox brothers & sisters, if he was planning to allow any such thing?

Who had an interest in them happening, Moscow or Kiev? You know the answer to that question, Rick. And it ain't Moscow.

Bucha could very easily have been committed by the Asov Brigade or the Right Sector or one of the other fanatically brutal skinhead outfits in Ukraine — they want such things to happen for propaganda purposes.

Who shot all those people at the Maidan protests in 2014? There's every reason to suggest it was Asov&Co. They're the ones who had a deep interest in dialing up public outrage.

And what drove all those ethnic-Russian protestors into the Trade Unions House in Odessa in 2014? Snowballs? N0, far-right gunmen firing on them, who then set the thing on fire, burning them to death or causing them to jump à la 911.

As for Mariupol, you do know who lives there, right? Ethnic Russians. Why would the Russians do this??
And guess who was holding out at the Mariupol steel plant — the Asov Brigade. And it's apparent that they had civilians as human shields, though Western media obligingly told us they had gone there to shelter.

Jacques Baud describes in considerable detail the calculations showing that the shell that hit the kindergarten could only have come from Ukrainian artillery.
Yet Western media fervently pinned it on the Russians without a second thought. Mind your diet.

I'm not saying that the Russian army — especially the Wagner Group — is incapable of war crimes. But look at where they're fighting: ethnic-Russian territory.

Neither you nor I knows exactly what happened. But reason it out. The Asov types have played a gigantic roll in Ukraine for decades.

Good news, everyone! Reincarnation is real!

Bad news, everyone! Muad Dib got reincarnated in Europe as a shitty Muscovite apologist instead of a shitty Confederate apologist, so now we get to hear about "Butcher Joe" and "The War of Ukrainian Aggression" for fuck knows how long.


Okay, please continue telling us how all those raped and murdered and stolen Ukranian children had it coming because of something Obama did, or whatever the fuck you're babbling about.

Would someone dumb it down for me? I admit I skimmed.

No need.

Mine is inevitably more informed and considered.

NoNo is a vatnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatnik_(slang)