Will the 800 million in USA be enough to turn the tide?

You need to read the Bucharest declaration of 2008. It says that NATO is in the process of inviting Georgia and Ukraine into the fold. Russia drew a red line in front of Georgia and Ukraine and said "look we didn't say anything in 1999 in the first round of Eastern Europe admissions in to NATO, or in the second round in 2003, but we're drawing a line here at Georgia and Ukraine are not going into NATO." Russia prove they were serious by immediately invading Georgia, then during the Obama Administration they invaded Ukraine and took Crimea, and now under the Biden Administration they've invaded Ukraine again. So what on earth makes you think that they're not serious? Russia has clearly stated their position, they have proven it by their actions, I don't see how anyone can rationally say that there's any ambiguity here.
After an application to join NATO has been accepted, it can take about a year for the process to be completed. 2008 was 14 years ago...

Russia has no right to decide whether or not a different county will join NATO.

I didn't say that Russia's intentions were ambiguous.

You don't think Russia might argue that they've never used Ukraine to invade western Europe?
Who is "they" here? If you mean NATO, then NATO does not invade; it defends.

No I think he's the victim. On the one hand Russia is prepared to squash him like a bug, but on the other hand all the Western nations won't take peace for an answer. Zelinskyy is in the absolute definition of a no-win scenario.
The Western nations do not decide whether or not there is peace in Ukraine. That is between Putin and Ukraine.

If it were completely unacceptable to Ukraine then Zelenskyy would not have been saying as he has said several times that he's willing to engage in settlement talks with Russia. Don't project your attitude onto Zelenskyy because they're two different things.
It's not my attitude. Zelensky has said that one of his "red lines" is that Russia must withdraw at least to the boundaries that existed before Russia invaded (Crimea was not mentioned; so, presumably, he's given up hope of getting that back).

There's a very good reason he calls them Nazis. Because they're Nazis. This is not a point concerning which there is any dispute at all! When left-wing kooks accused the US Army of being racist, they're being hyperbolic. But Ukraine literally has an entire battalion of certified Nazis. And believe me these guys are just as horrible as any Nazis who ever lived. Thankfully this battalion does not represent the entire Ukrainian army, but there's no excuse for having these guys around.
The Azov battalion is not what I was referring to; I meant the civilians, including the Ukrainian government. The Russian soldiers have been taking civilians to "filtration camps", then interrogating them about their politics, amongst other things.

The fact also remains that, as evil as Naziism is, if the people who support it are not actually threatening other countries (and they weren't), then there is no excuse for invading to root them out. That is a matter for Ukraine itself.

It's widely reported that the Ukrainian Nazis have been shooting the genitalia off of Russian prisoners. It's also been reported that they've been shooting Russian speaking Ukrainians, who have been welcoming Russian troops into these largely Russian speaking areas as liberators. So you're welcome to take your pic the first casualty of war is the truth. I'm not believing anybody's propaganda at this point. We may not know the truth for decades.
War is horrible and both sides almost always commit atrocities, sooner or later. Revenge is very powerful motive, although that does not justify any evil actions taken by either side.

If memory serves I believe you pointed out that thousands of Ukrainians have been killed. A lot of Russians have also been killed. If this is not the maximum death Road it's very close to it.
What I meant was that predicting the "maximum death count" must consider future consequences of present actions, or inaction, not merely what is happening right now.

I don't agree with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But I'm not sure that your characterization is particularly useful either. If Russia were truly the bully that you would have us believe, why didn't they invade anybody in 1999? Why didn't Russia invade anybody in 2003? Russia drew this red line in 2008. It's now 2022. if Russia is being a bully they are the slowest bully off the line I've ever heard of.
With respect, these are not very sensible questions...

Bullying takes many forms, not merely invading other countries; and, the timing of invasions is usually a very complex matter.

The red line that Russia (Putin, not the Russian people as a whole) drew, in 2008, was itself bullying. He had absolutely no right to tell Georgia and Ukraine that they were not going to be allowed to join a defensive alliance. He also had no right to say that he does not recognise Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as sovereign countries (that statement contains much menace, in itself, since they were previously in the U.S.S.R.).

He had no right to invade Georgia or Ukraine, nor to threaten Moldova (re. Transnistria), Finland and Sweden (re. joining NATO). Putin is a psychopathic bully, which means that, as long as he is in control, so is Russia.
 
After an application to join NATO has been accepted, it can take about a year for the process to be completed.
What on earth are you talking about? Whatever that may be, this is what the Bucharest declaration says in relevant part:

"NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations. We welcome the democratic reforms in Ukraine and Georgia and look forward to free and fair parliamentary elections in Georgia in May. MAP is the next step for Ukraine and Georgia on their direct way to membership. Today we make clear that we support these countries’ applications for MAP. Therefore we will now begin a period of intensive engagement with both at a high political level to address the questions still outstanding pertaining to their MAP applications. We have asked Foreign Ministers to make a first assessment of progress at their December 2008 meeting. Foreign Ministers have the authority to decide on the MAP applications of Ukraine and Georgia." Link
2008 was 14 years ago...
I know, I can subtract.
Russia has no right to decide whether or not a different county will join NATO.
We have no right to tell Cuba that they can't host Russian nuclear missiles aimed at the United States. Great power politics has absolutely nothing to do with who has the "right" to do what. Great power politics has to do with what you better do if you don't want to be clobbered by a great power. If you're lucky enough to own a car in Cuba it was manufactured in the 1950s. The United States has been clobbering Cuba for my entire life. Right now Russia is clobbering Ukraine, if I were Ukrainian I would not be feeling too good about that. Russia is no more going to "just get over it" than the United States has gotten over the Cuban missile crisis. And if you think I don't know what I'm talking about lets have this conversation again, 60 years from today. You will see that Russia didn't "just get over it."
I didn't say that Russia's intentions were ambiguous.
That's good, it shows dispositively do you have a clearer apprehension of this situation then does the Biden administration.
Who is "they" here? If you mean NATO, then NATO does not invade; it defends.
Russia has never used Ukraine as a staging area to attack Western Europe even during the days of the USSR.
The Western nations do not decide whether or not there is peace in Ukraine. That is between Putin and Ukraine.
I suppose you could argue that the little sister who lips-off to every bully on the playground, bragging that her big brother can kick their posterior, and gets him beat up every day, didn't "decide" that her brother would get into all those fights. Nevertheless, somehow her actions ended up instigating those fights. Western Europe and the United States in particular has been that little sister to Ukraine. And Russia is in the process of kicking Ukraine's posterior. If Russia levels every single city in Ukraine to a smoldering ruin it's not going to affect us here in the United States hardly at all. At least on any comparative basis. But it's a very big deal if you happen to be a Ukrainian. Our willingness to fight to the last Ukrainian, is no great reflection on us. We can pin metals on each other, and put Ukrainian flags in our social media posts, and hash tag till the world looks level, and we're not a bit more virtuous for getting Ukraine wiped off the map .
It's not my attitude. Zelensky has said that one of his "red lines" is that Russia must withdraw at least to the boundaries that existed before Russia invaded (Crimea was not mentioned; so, presumably, he's given up hope of getting that back).
That's called an initial negotiating position. To any extent that his line has toughened from that it's because he's getting pressure from the United States and other Western nations. The ancestral spirits of the West are beating the war drums in order to "defeat Russia within the borders of Ukraine." If you were sitting in Putin's chair and watching all of this unfold, as he is doing would you throw up your hands and surrender? You've got a bigger nuclear arsenal than even the United States. Chances are very good that you would not.
The Azov battalion is not what I was referring to; I meant the civilians, including the Ukrainian government. The Russian soldiers have been taking civilians to "filtration camps", then interrogating them about their politics, amongst other things.

The fact also remains that, as evil as Naziism is, if the people who support it are not actually threatening other countries (and they weren't), then there is no excuse for invading to root them out. That is a matter for Ukraine itself.
It'll be interesting to see how the news that we're getting out of Ukraine at this point is going to hold up in the long term. I've got my suspicions about all of the propaganda coming out from every side. The general proposition however that you have these Ukrainian Nazis in neighborhoods comprised of Russian speaking Ukrainians makes me think that they're up to no good. But I agree with your basic point that this is not an adequate explanation for Russia's invasion. Russia is invading because they consider Ukraine joining NATO to be an existential threat to their existence. And whether we believe that it is or it isn't is completely irrelevant, because Russia is going to continue to shell Ukraine until they're convinced that somebody gets the point.

. . . continued
 
War is horrible and both sides almost always commit atrocities, sooner or later. Revenge is very powerful motive, although that does not justify any evil actions taken by either side.
Amen to that brother…
What I meant was that predicting the "maximum death count" must consider future consequences of present actions, or inaction, not merely what is happening right now.
Prior to 1989 when we still had a USSR and the Warsaw Pact was right up against NATO. They never invaded western Europe. The idea that Russia is going to be more aggressive than the USSR was at the height of its strength strikes me as a relatively doubtful theory.
With respect, these are not very sensible questions...
There was a round of eastern block countries joining NATO in 1999 and Russia did nothing. There was a second round of eastern bloc nations joining NATO in 2003 in Russia did nothing. Russia didn't do anything until after the Bucharest declaration in 2008. They drew a red line at Georgia and Ukraine and they invaded Georgia to prove the point. Enduring nearly a decade of provocation is not my idea of what a bully looks like.
Bullying takes many forms, not merely invading other countries; and, the timing of invasions is usually a very complex matter.
It sounds like it's exactly as complex as it needs to be to prevent you from connecting the dots in such a way as to make a coherent case.
The red line that Russia (Putin, not the Russian people as a whole) drew, in 2008, was itself bullying.
Fair enough! Let's use your word Russia is being a bully! That's what great powers do! If we were going to stop Russia from leveling these cities in Ukraine with their artillery that ship has sailed. And we have all the tools that we started with for making the correct decision and that was the knowledge of great power politics that Russia is going to continue to devastate Ukraine until Ukraine and the West gets the message. So if we want to continue to fight to the last Ukrainian Russia will continue to pile dead bodies as high as the sky. And all of our declarations about what a bully Russia is will not have saved a single Ukrainian life.
He had absolutely no right to tell Georgia and Ukraine that they were not going to be allowed to join a defensive alliance. He also had no right to say that he does not recognise Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as sovereign countries (that statement contains much menace, in itself, since they were previously in the U.S.S.R.).
The utility of understanding great power politics has nothing to do with vindicating our sense of fairness. It has everything to do with not getting a country like Ukraine squashed like a bug.
He had no right to invade Georgia or Ukraine, nor to threaten Moldova (re. Transnistria), Finland and Sweden (re. joining NATO). Putin is a psychopathic bully, which means that, as long as he is in control, so is Russia.
I've got no argument on the ground of fairness. We have ignored everything that we can learn from a simple reading of great power politics with respect to Georgia and Ukraine now for years.

Just because we have screwed this up at every possible juncture now for 14 years straight, does not mean we can't pick up on the signals that Russia is sending now. The clear and unambiguous signal that Russia is sending now is they have put their nuclear status on high alert. That is just about as clear a signal concerning how seriously they're taking this, as they can send to us. It will do us no good to wait for Russia to start launching nuclear weapons and then complain about what a bully they are.

We have proceeded as though the signals that Russia has been sending for 14 years are not to be believed in spite of the fact that they have invaded Ukrainian twice and Georgia at least once possibly more. I say we start taking some of these signals seriously before Russia starts launching nuclear weapons.
 
What on earth are you talking about? Whatever that may be, this is what the Bucharest declaration says in relevant part:

"NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO..." Link

NATO obviously had second thoughts. The process to join NATO does not take 14+ years...

We have no right to tell Cuba that they can't host Russian nuclear missiles aimed at the United States.
Now you're being ridiculous! How can you possibly think that it's right to equate joining a defensive alliance, having given up your entire nuclear arsenal, with obtaining nuclear missiles to point at a near neighbour???

Great power politics has absolutely nothing to do with who has the "right" to do what. Great power politics has to do with what you better do if you don't want to be clobbered by a great power. If you're lucky enough to own a car in Cuba it was manufactured in the 1950s. The United States has been clobbering Cuba for my entire life. Right now Russia is clobbering Ukraine, if I were Ukrainian I would not be feeling too good about that. Russia is no more going to "just get over it" than the United States has gotten over the Cuban missile crisis. And if you think I don't know what I'm talking about lets have this conversation again, 60 years from today. You will see that Russia didn't "just get over it."
Russia has nothing much to "get over", since Ukraine was not threatening Russia at all.

Russia has never used Ukraine as a staging area to attack Western Europe even during the days of the USSR.
But, with Putin in charge, Moldova, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had better watch out. Putin is already making noises about Transnistria (part of Moldova) and the alleged mistreatment of Russian speakers there (the kind of pretext he used to send his elite forces, in unmarked uniforms, into Eastern Ukraine, years ago). He has also stated that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are not legitimate sovereign countries. Those three are in NATO, which means that Putin is implying that he might invade members of NATO.

There was a round of eastern block countries joining NATO in 1999 and Russia did nothing. There was a second round of eastern bloc nations joining NATO in 2003 in Russia did nothing. Russia didn't do anything until after the Bucharest declaration in 2008. They drew a red line at Georgia and Ukraine and they invaded Georgia to prove the point. Enduring nearly a decade of provocation is not my idea of what a bully looks like.
A decade of "provocation"? That sounds like the propaganda coming out of the Kremlin. There is nothing provocative about accepting applications to join a purely defensive alliance.

Fair enough! Let's use your word Russia is being a bully! That's what great powers do! If we were going to stop Russia from leveling these cities in Ukraine with their artillery that ship has sailed. And we have all the tools that we started with for making the correct decision and that was the knowledge of great power politics that Russia is going to continue to devastate Ukraine until Ukraine and the West gets the message. So if we want to continue to fight to the last Ukrainian Russia will continue to pile dead bodies as high as the sky. And all of our declarations about what a bully Russia is will not have saved a single Ukrainian life.
Great powers only bully, if a bully (or bullies) is in control of them.

I'm not at all convinced that the West has handled things well. America, Britain and Russia all signed an agreement to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity, when Ukraine disposed of its nuclear weapons. I suspected then that the agreement was not worth the paper it was written on, and this has, sadly, proved to be true.

Not one of those three countries has kept the agreement (America and Britain, as well as other countries, have sent arms and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but that is far from enough).

The governments (especially our current British government) are probably scared to take on Russia (to avoid escalation and the possibility of nuclear war); but, in a different time, when Germany invaded Poland, Britain declared war on an enemy many times more powerful than we were (Britain only had, literally, two or three operational tanks, at the start of WWII. We had precisely zero heavy bombers. Some of our seaplanes were so old and slow that the Germans called them "flying antiques". Our naval flagship, HMS Hood, had a wooden deck and was built before WW1.), to keep our word to try to defend Poland.

It may be pragmatic; but it is not honourable (to allow Ukraine to fight on alone).

I suppose you could argue that the little sister who lips-off to every bully on the playground, bragging that her big brother can kick their posterior, and gets him beat up every day, didn't "decide" that her brother would get into all those fights. Nevertheless, somehow her actions ended up instigating those fights. Western Europe and the United States in particular has been that little sister to Ukraine. And Russia is in the process of kicking Ukraine's posterior. If Russia levels every single city in Ukraine to a smoldering ruin it's not going to affect us here in the United States hardly at all. At least on any comparative basis. But it's a very big deal if you happen to be a Ukrainian. Our willingness to fight to the last Ukrainian, is no great reflection on us. We can pin metals on each other, and put Ukrainian flags in our social media posts, and hash tag till the world looks level, and we're not a bit more virtuous for getting Ukraine wiped off the map .
I don't think that it's at all fair to imply that the West is responsible for instigating Russia's attack on Ukraine (unless there is secret-service skulduggery going on, which is possible).

I agree with the rest of your paragraph.

That's called an initial negotiating position. To any extent that his line has toughened from that it's because he's getting pressure from the United States and other Western nations. The ancestral spirits of the West are beating the war drums in order to "defeat Russia within the borders of Ukraine." If you were sitting in Putin's chair and watching all of this unfold, as he is doing would you throw up your hands and surrender? You've got a bigger nuclear arsenal than even the United States. Chances are very good that you would not.
Is Zelensky under pressure from the West, re. his negotiating position? It's possible, but I've seen no evidence.

I very much doubt if Putin will surrender (it's not what psychopaths do).

Having a larger nuclear arsenal than the U.S. would not do Putin (or anyone) any good, since NATO would retaliate and huge portions of the globe would become uninhabitable. It's not called M.A.D. for nothing.

It'll be interesting to see how the news that we're getting out of Ukraine at this point is going to hold up in the long term. I've got my suspicions about all of the propaganda coming out from every side. The general proposition however that you have these Ukrainian Nazis in neighborhoods comprised of Russian speaking Ukrainians makes me think that they're up to no good. But I agree with your basic point that this is not an adequate explanation for Russia's invasion. Russia is invading because they consider Ukraine joining NATO to be an existential threat to their existence. And whether we believe that it is or it isn't is completely irrelevant, because Russia is going to continue to shell Ukraine until they're convinced that somebody gets the point.
Both sides use propaganda, in wars, so suspicion about the news is healthy.

I think that there's more to Putin's rationale for invading than merely Ukraine joining NATO, or the Russian speakers, or Ukraine's natural resources. There is also the fact that Ukraine supports LGBT "rights", and Western "decadence" in general. It appears that he sees himself as some sort of guardian of righteousness (egged on by "Patriarch" Kirill, in the Russian Orthodox) and thinks that military force is the way to purge the evil out of Ukraine.
 
Amen to that brother…

Prior to 1989 when we still had a USSR and the Warsaw Pact was right up against NATO. They never invaded western Europe. The idea that Russia is going to be more aggressive than the USSR was at the height of its strength strikes me as a relatively doubtful theory.
I think that Putin is trying to re-create something like the old U.S.S.R..

I've got no argument on the ground of fairness. We have ignored everything that we can learn from a simple reading of great power politics with respect to Georgia and Ukraine now for years.
Or, possibly, tried to use it, in behind-the scenes machinations.

Just because we have screwed this up at every possible juncture now for 14 years straight, does not mean we can't pick up on the signals that Russia is sending now. The clear and unambiguous signal that Russia is sending now is they have put their nuclear status on high alert. That is just about as clear a signal concerning how seriously they're taking this, as they can send to us. It will do us no good to wait for Russia to start launching nuclear weapons and then complain about what a bully they are.
True.

We have proceeded as though the signals that Russia has been sending for 14 years are not to be believed in spite of the fact that they have invaded Ukrainian twice and Georgia at least once possibly more. I say we start taking some of these signals seriously before Russia starts launching nuclear weapons.
I have an unprovable suspicion that the global elite wanted this war to happen.
 
NATO obviously had second thoughts. The process to join NATO does not take 14+ years...
Who gave you this ( it only takes a year) time frame, and who decided that was "obvious"? If NATO had changed their mind we wouldn't be in the middle of a Russian invasion right now. A lot of things had to change in Ukraine before NATO membership would be a possibility. If memory serves Ukraine still had a somewhat pro-Russia government at the time. It takes a little bit of time for the CIA to topple the then current Ukrainian regime. I believe that got us to about 2014.
Now you're being ridiculous!
Oh, you're viewing this from the perspective of the United States of America? Who would have guessed? This is the point, the United States is broadly a liberal democracy, which is part of our national identity, but we would have a strong nationalist sentiment even if we were not a liberal democracy. That's where Russia is, they're not exactly a liberal democracy, nevertheless they have a strong national sentiment. The average Russian thinks that democracy is overrated. They try that back in the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin. it didn't go as well for them as things are going under Putin. In short, their attitude is "it's my country right or wrong!" What America and Russia have in common is that we both have a strong national sentiment. In other words, the strongest political idea on planet earth is nationalism, and nationalism beats liberal hegemony every time.
How can you possibly think that it's right to equate joining a defensive alliance, having given up your entire nuclear arsenal, with obtaining nuclear missiles to point at a near neighbour???
Joining NATO means that you have the entire nuclear arsenal of the United States which is aimed at Russia. They didn't give up anything if they join NATO!
Russia has nothing much to "get over", since Ukraine was not threatening Russia at all.
"I just hired these 150 Pinkerton agents with Winchester rifles aimed at your head, but I'm not threatening you; you see I'm completely disarmed!" That argument may be completely convincing to you, but Russia is not buying it. And they're not going to "get over, not buying it."
But, with Putin in charge, Moldova, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had better watch out. Putin is already making noises about Transnistria (part of Moldova) and the alleged mistreatment of Russian speakers there (the kind of pretext he used to send his elite forces, in unmarked uniforms, into Eastern Ukraine, years ago). He has also stated that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are not legitimate sovereign countries. Those three are in NATO, which means that Putin is implying that he might invade members of NATO.
Russia may in fact attack a NATO country. The reason being Russia wants to go nuclear and I can't see any battlefield application for a tactical nuclear weapon deployment in Ukraine. Generally speaking things aren't going well for Russia, and the reason to change the board with a nuclear strike is not strategic it's tactical. That will change all of the assumptions on the strategic board and given you don't like the way the pieces are laid out now you might like them differently after you up end the board.
A decade of "provocation"? That sounds like the propaganda coming out of the Kremlin. There is nothing provocative about accepting applications to join a purely defensive alliance.
If the Warsaw Pact still existed in NATO it shut down operation, and all but a handful of the NATO countries had joined the Warsaw Pact, we would consider the proposition that England and France joins the Warsaw pact to be problematic. Are you interested in denying that assertion?
Great powers only bully, if a bully (or bullies) is in control of them.
Your desire to use the polemic term "bully" is creating the problem here, because that makes the United States a bully for a 60 year embargo on Cuba. Great power politics has not changed since the beginning of time. That's what strategic realism is. Realism isn't designed to be fair it's designed to be realistic. It's a tool for accurate perception not political manipulation.
I'm not at all convinced that the West has handled things well.
I'll say! We decided we had essentially won the war in Afghanistan three weeks in, and started planning to invade Iraq. That's why we're willing to fight to the last Ukrainian in Ukraine, because we're not sending our own boys in there. And I'm glad that my son's in the army.

continued in the next post​
 
America, Britain and Russia all signed an agreement to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity, when Ukraine disposed of its nuclear weapons.
James Baker also told the Russians that NATO would not expand eastward. When you make absolutely mutually exclusive promises it means you're gonna break one.
I suspected then that the agreement was not worth the paper it was written on, and this has, sadly, proved to be true.
I am truly grieved to see all of the destruction of Ukraine. But this war is largely our fault. The only thing that would make it worse is Americans going to die in Eastern Europe, and in the process starting a nuclear war. We have fought seven wars since the fall of the Soviet Union, and we have succeeded in installing exactly zero democracies. The foreign policy of liberal hegemony has not worked.
Not one of those three countries has kept the agreement (America and Britain, as well as other countries, have sent arms and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but that is far from enough).

The governments (especially our current British government) are probably scared to take on Russia (to avoid escalation and the possibility of nuclear war); but, in a different time, when Germany invaded Poland, Britain declared war on an enemy many times more powerful than we were (Britain only had, literally, two or three operational tanks, at the start of WWII. We had precisely zero heavy bombers. Some of our seaplanes were so old and slow that the Germans called them "flying antiques". Our naval flagship, HMS Hood, had a wooden deck and was built before WW1.), to keep our word to try to defend Poland.

It may be pragmatic; but it is not honourable (to allow Ukraine to fight on alone).
I don't think it would be dishonorable to let up the pressure on Ukraine so they could make peace with Russia that might be had. Some may argue that that ship has already sailed, I don't know… I do know that things are not going in a good direction right now.
I don't think that it's at all fair to imply that the West is responsible for instigating Russia's attack on Ukraine (unless there is secret-service skulduggery going on, which is possible).
What the Obama and Biden administrations did that is very different from all the Trump administration did, is that they very publicly provoked Russia with the stick of Ukraine. If you poke the bear in the eye with a stick it's not good. Somebody could argue the Trump administration did send the Ukrainians valuable weapons and that's true, but the Trump administration also squashed Isis like a bug, which was also a big problem for the Russians. In short, the Trump administration did a better job of managing Russia then did Obama or Biden.
I agree with the rest of your paragraph.
I take it as a foregone conclusion that we install the changing regimes in 2014.
Is Zelensky under pressure from the West, re. his negotiating position? It's possible, but I've seen no evidence.
The evidence is that he has proposed several times peace talks with the notion of neutrality centering in his statements and everyone in the West has treated everyone of those overtures to Russia with a deafening silence. Nobody in the west is going to issue a press release saying that we are pressuring Zelenskyy to fight to the last Ukrainian.
I very much doubt if Putin will surrender (it's not what psychopaths do).
I don't think it's accurate or helpful to assume that Putin's actions are a result of mental illness. If he thinks we should believe he's crazy he's got at least a tactical if not strategic reason for trying to telegraph that to us.
Having a larger nuclear arsenal than the U.S. would not do Putin (or anyone) any good, since NATO would retaliate and huge portions of the globe would become uninhabitable. It's not called M.A.D. for nothing.
This is where I think there is a disconnect in the rational in the west. If a great power (in this instance a great nuclear power) believes it's facing an "existential threat" that means their existence is threatened the deterrent effect of MAD is off the table. So when we talk about "defeating Russia in Ukraine," Russia and the west agrees about one thing… Russia is facing an existential threat!
Both sides use propaganda, in wars, so suspicion about the news is healthy.
Agreed.
I think that there's more to Putin's rationale for invading than merely Ukraine joining NATO, or the Russian speakers, or Ukraine's natural resources. There is also the fact that Ukraine supports LGBT "rights", and Western "decadence" in general. It appears that he sees himself as some sort of guardian of righteousness (egged on by "Patriarch" Kirill, in the Russian Orthodox) and thinks that military force is the way to purge the evil out of Ukraine.
I wouldn't care to argue against the idea that all of those things may play a role in Putin's notification motivation.
 
That's what the appeasers thought, in the run-up to WWII. Just accept a few annexations by Hitler, and him "liberating" German speaking areas in other countries, then agree a peace treaty - best all round really. This means peace in our time...oops!
The two situations are nowhere near the same. For one Putin does not and never wanted NATO in Ukraine. Will not have NATO in Ukraine. We all know the US has been attempting to destabilize Russia thru Ukraine. Ukraine was also instrumental in undermining Trump's Presidency in the Russia collusion lie. There is a whole history here which is being ignored and i will focus on one event here in 2016 when Obama and Ukraine officials met in Washington.
---------
In mid-January, (2016) the Obama White House invites Ukrainian officials to Washington and asks them to drop the investigation of the company paying Hunter Biden. US officials also ask for information on a Republican strategist who worked with Ukrainian officials, Paul Manafort. Biden aide and Ukraine specialist Ciaramella is in attendance.

Smith, Lee. The Permanent Coup (p. x). Center Street. Kindle Edition.


Russia knew all about this and did not like the United States meddling in Ukraine affairs and the son of the VP getting no-show jobs. Crooked Joe Biden selling his office for US influence in Ukraine against the interests of Russia.

Russia also knew about US influence in Ukraine's research labs developing bio weapons that could be used against Russia. The US says it was all altruistic but nobody buys that.

https://www.rt.com/russia/555328-democrats-pentagon-pfizer-ukraine-biolabs/

The US government set up a way to fund the military bio-research directly from the federal budget, but also used government guarantees to raise funds from “non-governmental organizations controlled by the leadership of the Democratic Party,” Kirillov added.

As an example of such organizations, he showed a slide with the names of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the [Bill and Hillary] Clinton Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society and investment funds, the Rockefeller Foundation, EcoHealth Alliance, and Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca Partners.

Kirillov also named Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and Gilead as “large pharmaceutical companies” involved in this scheme, using it to test medications while bypassing international safety standards. This reduces the cost of their research and development, Kirillov argued, and the increase in pharma profits “allows the leaders of the Democratic Party to receive additional financial contributions for election campaigns and hide their distribution.”

Using Ukraine as a testbed effectively outside international control and leveraging the technological capacities of transnational pharma companies, the Pentagon has “significantly expanded its research potential not only in the field of creating biological weapons, but also obtaining information about antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases in populations of specific regions,” Kirillov noted.
 
Who gave you this ( it only takes a year) time frame, and who decided that was "obvious"? If NATO had changed their mind we wouldn't be in the middle of a Russian invasion right now. A lot of things had to change in Ukraine before NATO membership would be a possibility. If memory serves Ukraine still had a somewhat pro-Russia government at the time. It takes a little bit of time for the CIA to topple the then current Ukrainian regime. I believe that got us to about 2014.
See here.

 
The two situations are nowhere near the same. For one Putin does not and never wanted NATO in Ukraine. Will not have NATO in Ukraine. We all know the US has been attempting to destabilize Russia thru Ukraine. Ukraine was also instrumental in undermining Trump's Presidency in the Russia collusion lie. There is a whole history here which is being ignored and i will focus on one event here in 2016 when Obama and Ukraine officials met in Washington.
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In mid-January, (2016) the Obama White House invites Ukrainian officials to Washington and asks them to drop the investigation of the company paying Hunter Biden. US officials also ask for information on a Republican strategist who worked with Ukrainian officials, Paul Manafort. Biden aide and Ukraine specialist Ciaramella is in attendance.

Smith, Lee. The Permanent Coup (p. x). Center Street. Kindle Edition.


Russia knew all about this and did not like the United States meddling in Ukraine affairs and the son of the VP getting no-show jobs. Crooked Joe Biden selling his office for US influence in Ukraine against the interests of Russia.

Russia also knew about US influence in Ukraine's research labs developing bio weapons that could be used against Russia. The US says it was all altruistic but nobody buys that.

https://www.rt.com/russia/555328-democrats-pentagon-pfizer-ukraine-biolabs/

The US government set up a way to fund the military bio-research directly from the federal budget, but also used government guarantees to raise funds from “non-governmental organizations controlled by the leadership of the Democratic Party,” Kirillov added.

As an example of such organizations, he showed a slide with the names of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the [Bill and Hillary] Clinton Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society and investment funds, the Rockefeller Foundation, EcoHealth Alliance, and Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca Partners.

Kirillov also named Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and Gilead as “large pharmaceutical companies” involved in this scheme, using it to test medications while bypassing international safety standards. This reduces the cost of their research and development, Kirillov argued, and the increase in pharma profits “allows the leaders of the Democratic Party to receive additional financial contributions for election campaigns and hide their distribution.”

Using Ukraine as a testbed effectively outside international control and leveraging the technological capacities of transnational pharma companies, the Pentagon has “significantly expanded its research potential not only in the field of creating biological weapons, but also obtaining information about antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases in populations of specific regions,” Kirillov noted.
Food for thought...
 
See here.

Finland and Sweden are very different than Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are constantly slugging it out for the title of most corrupt government in Eastern Europe. Lots of modifications need to happen before everybody in NATO would be principally okay with Ukraine, intentions in the Bucharest declaration or no. Finland and Sweden on the other hand are in most respects already like most of the other NATO members.
 
Finland and Sweden are very different than Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are constantly slugging it out for the title of most corrupt government in Eastern Europe. Lots of modifications need to happen before everybody in NATO would be principally okay with Ukraine, intentions in the Bucharest declaration or no. Finland and Sweden on the other hand are in most respects already like most of the other NATO members.
That might also be true; but, the article says that Russian objections to Ukraine joining NATO have prevented it from happening (so far).
 
That might also be true; but, the article says that Russian objections to Ukraine joining NATO have prevented it from happening (so far).
Neutrality has worked for these countries ever since the Cold War began and until these recent events there was no reason for them to think it wouldn't continue to work. Having a very clear illustration of what Russia attacking a European nation actually looks like the confidence in their reasoning has collapsed.
 
Neutrality has worked for these countries ever since the Cold War began and until these recent events there was no reason for them to think it wouldn't continue to work. Having a very clear illustration of what Russia attacking a European nation actually looks like the confidence in their reasoning has collapsed.
If you're referring to Finland and Sweden, then I think you're right.
 
I'd say about 5% will be given in actual aid MAX, the rest are actual loans with strings attached and not for the benefit of the American people but for the deep state. How do you think the "Deep State" have managed to accumulate so much wealth and power? They've been stealing trillions from global tax payers for centuries, window dressed as good causes.

Not to mention the trillions we've paid in interest to them..........

Military spending is marked up 1000%, its a great racket and NATO is another great racket. So let me get this straight. If Finland and Sweden become NATO members and pay the protection money, they will be protected. If they dont, the US who spends 100X more on defense than any other country wont help to protect?? That is unless they have oil ? Its a SCAM on the largest scale possible and the tax payers are the suckers! War is a profit racket, the biggest there is!
 
Its all co-ordinated.......


$11 Trillion and Counting: Global Stock Slump May Not Be Over​

 
Will the 800 million in US aid be enough to turn the tide?

$48 billion USD in US aid as of November 20.

In recent months, Russian troops have been forced out of Northern and central Ukraine, and have been forced to retreat from significant portions of Eastern and Southern Ukraine, so I'd say that the aid provided by the US and around 40 other countries is certainly enough to turn the tide.
 
$48 billion USD in US aid as of November 20.

In recent months, Russian troops have been forced out of Northern and central Ukraine, and have been forced to retreat from significant portions of Eastern and Southern Ukraine, so I'd say that the aid provided by the US and around 40 other countries is certainly enough to turn the tide.
No. That's the way it's being spun in the western press but that's not the way it is. Russia doesn't need to "hold ground." Putin has given their on the ground commanders the latitude to position their troops in whatever way makes tactical sense on the ground. This would include not defending strategically unimportant ground that has been captured.
 
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