"The 1980's are calling to ask for their foreign policy back."

The following are all true, in my opinion. The world is complicated and the actions of one party do not merit that we ignore or excuse the actions of another.

1. How Russia was treated in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union - subjected to economic shock-therapy, massive inflation and so forth - with little effort made to properly integrate them to the world system was a large factor in the emergence of the authoritarian Putin regime, which Russians supported (as people often do of such regimes) because it brought stability.

2. Western powers tolerated and in some cases tacitly supported Russian crimes in Chechnya, setting the precedent for further Russian aggressions.

3. NATO expansion in eastern Europe is clearly a problem. It is the stated policy of the United States that Russia is a strategic opponent, and the target of their military posture. It would be insane for any Russian government not to oppose Ukraine joining NATO. An agreement that they won't is (or was) an obvious part of the solution to this mess. That was in the Minsk II agreement, which the US was notably not a partner to as it conflicts with their efforts at dominance.

4. The 2014 coup in Ukraine - where a Russian-aligned government was replaced by a Western-aligned one - was the immediate historical catalyst for a lot of this.

5. There are neo-Nazi's such as the Azov Battalion involved in the Ukranian state. That state should not be romanticised.

6. Some prominent elements in the west - such as the British Tory party - have benefitted from Russian money and are loathe to confront it.

7. European countries give the Russian billions - billions - for natural gas. Sanctions are not serious unless this is looked at, and unless other things which will hurt western economies - such as ending the use of the SWIFT payment system by Russia - are considered.

8. It is intolerable that NATO or anyone else would take any military action against Putin or Russia, as some are suggesting. That would very simply lead to the end of civilisation.

9. Vladimir Putin was a mass murdering scumbag before any of this. However unlikely it may be, his rightful place is to die in a prison cell after being convicted for his crimes of aggression. His retro-Tsarist ideology and whatever justifications he might offer are soaked in deceit. There is nothing "defensive" in a full-scale invasion of his neighbour.

10. The endgame here is presumably installation of an unrecognised puppet government in Ukraine, with a general civil war against those who choose not to accept it.

I agree one million percent that not everything is about US domestic politics. However, sitting in the US we are subjected to a constant barrage of infotainment that tells us every international incident is because of something that happened in our domestic politics.

Putin was well aware that US politics were broken. And on cue, as soon as he invaded Ukraine you saw a large contingent of the Republican Party and its leader Donald Trump praise and support his cause. That’s a whole other discussion as to why modern Republicans support autocrats. But for now, I know any solution that leads to a cease fire or an end to hostilities is going to be met with exactly zero support from half of our domestic population.

I'd go one further, Putin actively sought to break US politics.

All those disinformation campaigns? All the low key support and encouragement for the lamest of lame duck POTUS's in history? All the stoking of divisions and smearing of key players?

He brought the US to the verge of civil war before doing this andI struggle to believe there's not at least an overall strategic connection.

This.

Kyiv’s mayor looks like he knows how to really fuck someone up.

Was that tongue-in-cheek, or do you really not know who he is?

I have been fantasizing some far fetched scenarios where he somehow found himself alone in a room with Putin lately...

Er, yes, he very much can...

Not a boxing fan?

Nope.

Spot had to explain this to me, too.

He's held virtually every heavy and super heavy weight belt in the world at military, amateur and professional levels. 47 -2 record at pro level and his brother Vladimir has had similar success.

He then went into politics.

Suffice to say he could eat Putin's heart with a rusty spoon.

Correction, 47 fights, 45-2, he's still someone you mention in the same breath as Foreman, Ali and Tyson

goddamn i luv me some soviet era subways.

Dropped by again after a while to see how things were going on WF during the invasion of Ukraine.

The resident fascist says if our fascist president was still president Russia's fascist president would never have done this. He's right - but for exactly the wrong reasons.

And the resident socialist spends most of his post explaining how it's really the West's and Ukraine's fault (8 out of 10 of his points highlight this), including NATO expansion to Eastern Europe. He doesn't mention why Eastern European countries have been clamoring to join NATO until point 9 - the fact that they neighbor a madman with nukes and a penchant for having his own journalists thrown out windows and political opponents poisoned. Oh, and has invaded multiple former Soviet satellite states prior to this.

But then I can always tell these two points of view. The first one I'll find on Fox news, and the 2nd on the World Socialist Website. Neither one is very insightful.

Your capacity for sheer invention never ceases to amaze. In pointing out the historical background I assigned no such "fault" and I specifically said so. Valdimir Putin has his own agency and is responsible for his own actions. I support western actions that might cause him to reverse these. I hope the Ukrainians give the Russians a good kicking in the meantime. And I have huge admiration for the Russians currently standing against Putin in the face of persecution. But let's not yet again try to reduce decades of geopolitical maneuvering into another good guys/bad guys caricature.

You continuously do so when it's a western power at fault, and if you aren't that self-aware that's on you.

Decades of political maneuvering don't change the basic moral stance - that the countries of Eastern Europe have MUCH to fear from Russia, and their democratically elected governments have every right to request defense alliances because THEY FUCKING CONTROL THEIR OWN FOREIGN POLICY. If they don't, you have already ceded Russia's right to dominate their neighbors.

And quite frankly, 'we are afraid of invasion' from Ukraine may be something that propaganda has inculcated into Russian day to day life, but every single policy maker knows that no western power will back an attack on the largest nuclear state in the world. It's a lie.

No, the rape victim isn't asking for it if she wore a pretty skirt.

No, I want to understand why my children are currently talking with their friends about a potential nuclear apocalypse.

Or perhaps certain things, such as "Putin is a murderous sociopath" are self evident and needn't be stated?

You'd think so, but then you'd meet half the Republican party and about 1/3rd of the far left in America. And certainly quite a few of our international brethren.

So probably a good idea to start with that before then talking about how NATO expansion is the problem, or the coup in Ukraine (you know, the one where the Ukrainian parliament removed the president and Ukrainian court convicted him of high treason). Hell, the Party of Regions, his own party, condemned Yanukovych. In a statement issued by Oleksandr Yefremov, parliamentary faction leader, the party and its members "strongly condemn[ed] the criminal orders that led to human victims, an empty state treasury, huge debts, shame before the eyes of the Ukrainian people and the entire world". They then released Yulia Tymoshenko, former Prime Minister who was running against him in 2010, who Yanukovych jailed 3 years before Euromaidan.

But sure, coup.

At least the lens had a matte box on it.

I have a list of about three military campaigns in history that I consider justified, so good luck with backing that one up with any actual statement from me.

NATO is not a mere "defensive alliance", and their admission policy is not a free-for-all for whoever "requests" it. They could very easily have decided that they didn't want to destablise Eastern Europe by not expanding there if they had wanted. But maintaining peace is simply not their priority.
And that is putting aside that the Ukranians themselves were already prepared to concede this point as part of Minsk II - but that was undermined and is now a dead letter.

What do you think of the Monroe Doctrine? Do you think that Russian nukes in Cuba were fine?

What's a lie? Are you perhaps inventing things to argue against again? Some on this board suggested actions that amounted to military attack on Russia. I responded to those. Nowhere did I say that this was being considered by western governments.

What?

And even at that, was stated.

Aaaaaaaand it looks like the odds of this turning into WWIII for real just went up.