Ukraine (Mod Note & Threadbanned Users in OP)

Source on that claim?

At some stage in the future there may be active defenses that intercept nuclear weapons, and every nuclear power is very aware of this possibility. Sure the US had nuclear weapons too, it didnt stop them drawing a red line at the USSR having missiles in Cuba. Nuclear weapons are a powerful deterrent but not the be all and end all. A nation cannot relax simply because they have them

I agree, it hasn't. Regardless, expect espionage and frosty relations between Russia and Finland going forward if they succeed in NATO membership.

Post this war, it will be a decade of very poor relations between Europe and Russia (and its friends further east). We were warned by western diplomats for decades that NATO expansion eastward would be a "red-line" and that the Russians perceive it as an active threat - so this result was not surprising. Nor will the cold war-lite state of affairs for the next decade or more be surprising.

How come that Russia has threatened Ukr/ the world that ‘ all hell will break loose’ if Ukr is starting to think about/ making efforts to join NATO, yet Finland and Norway have their applications already lodged with NATO and apart from a small few expected comments from Putin, there has been total silence. So why the VERY DIFFERENT responses?

In this post it looks to me that what you are doing is reflecting. Every characteristic you apply to the Ukrainians, is actually what the Russians are actually doing. Have you watched your own state TV lately? Or is that more Ukrainian propaganda?

Enough.

Ukraine has  oligarchic system of its own. Poroshenko is a prominent oligarch. The man behind Zelenkiy's presindency is Kolomoisky (you can read on Privatbank saga and how it's all linked)

Russian set up looks painfully Soviet Union type (I cannot look at these old faces swollen from the drink sitting nodding to every single Putin's word) , and while Ukrainian set up sort of looks more modern (young faces in the government, newly elected president after each election and this is because people are so desperate, they are prepared to vote for anything as long as it's smth new that maybe, just maybe won't be as corrupt), differences are still minimal when it comes to the overall picture in both countries where an average citizen is concerned - wages are poor, standards of living too, corruption is through the roof.

I also agree with SITM - Crimea and the East of Ukraine are gone for good now. Not only because there is a lot of support for Russia there (only recently Alex Crawford of Sky News was interviewing people in one of the basements of Severodonetsk and people were refusing to leave - they were waiting to be freed by the Russians and a man crying of how he was called by a Ukrainian soldier a "separ", short for separatist) but also because of the anti Russian language moods in the West of Ukraine getting re-activated with the new force as well as growing opinions amongst the population like to hell with Crimean and Donbas - they are traitors, etc, let them go to mother Russia, we don't need them.

I am a Ukrainian from the West and this is what my lads (we are talking about educated people, teachers, etc) had been saying even before the big war started on the 24th - to hell with Crimea and Donbas. Not only they are saying this between themselves, they are spreading this around, in their work places like schools, universities - places where you can easily influence other people, especially, younger generation.

Nothing justifies what's happening right now and for me personally what's happening is very sad, but it's not just Putin's fault for sure even though I blame him first.

As for Crimea, having been on holidays there many times as a child and teenager, I also studied with the group of about 30 in the 90s - they came from Crimea to my university in the West. They were pretty different to us and the whole 5 years they stayed studying they struggled - they kept together as a group and only made friends with those that spoke Russian to them but they never really became part of our large student community and even after 5 years, they never learnt Ukrainian properly (only basics that they would use to buy goods in the shop). The minute they got their degrees, they went back to Crimea (not a single one stayed in the West). I've zero doubts that every single one of them voted to become part of Russia when the Referendum took place, especially after 5 years in my city (in the 90s nationalists were regularly flooding our main square with their anti Russian and pro Bandera slogans which was probably scary for an average Russian speaking from the East to watch). And this is younger generation we are talking about. Older generation is even worse when it comes to support for Russia and the return of Soviet Union. After all they are ethnically Russian.

I'm sorry but much of what you wrote is incomprehensible.

What on earth does this mean?

"For this reason, the Ukrainians (not just "Ukraine") will face the hard fate of deep complacency with their "nation" in future decades. This trait won't let you raise your country as you described above."

On the substantive point you made about Ukraine (at least this is what I understand you were addressing):

It is true that Ukraine only gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union; nonetheless it is a sovereign state which has the right to choose which alliances it joins, without the threat of war from it's more powerful neighbours.

Do you agree that Ukrainians have the right to choose the path for their country?

If NATO were the concern, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine wouldn't have happened. NATO was "brain dead" according to the French, Finland & Sweden weren't joining, & Ukraine would never have been allowed in given its disputed borders with Russia etc.

Invading (the rest of) Ukraine changed (and was always guaranteed to change) all that - which the Russians would have fully understood (they aren't stupid).

My god man. A quote from an "unidentified U.S. senior defense official" in the conservative National Review is the opposite of evidence. it is pure narrative affirming propaganda. Are you aware of how biased your sources are or do you just whack them in there hoping no one notices that they are written by the Pentagon?

Russia has over 1m soldiers and 2m Reservists. Do you honestly think there are 2.25 million Russians in the forests outside Sievierodonetsk?

The Russians will not come close to Odessa. At best they hold they lands they currently have east of the Dnieper, along with Severodonetsk/Lisichansk. They will not get as far as Kramatorsk either in the east.

If they manage to close the encirclement around Lisichansk (which would take months more at this rate), thats about it. After that they dig in or negotiate.

I didn't put quotes around the Intelligent word. So are you saying that Russians are not intelligent?

It will survive as an independent country, I am sure. The problem is if it looses all the valuable territories and access to ports, what is it going to be like to live there?

In the year before the war nearly 2 million (if I remember correctly) left Ukraine to work abroad (mainly in Poland where wages aren't great). Now during the war even more left. Many will not return.

People in the West of the country haven't felt yet the real impact of the war (life goes on as normal there with weddings, parties etc). In 6-12 months time when they start feeling the effects of what's going on, they may start leaving the country too.

I struggle to see EU taking on such a liability and accepting Ukraine as a member. They'll keep helping financially, of course, with half of the money going into the pockets of our corrupt politicians and we'll go back to continue living like before the war but with way less territory.

I'd love to be like Arestovich guy (Zelenskiy's advisor) who every evening in his Youtube interviews is winning the war, but even if we do, is there a person or the willingness to bring the two parts of Ukraine together so that they could live together in peace and mutual respect for their cultural and language differences? I don't know such a person. Surprisingly even Russian speaking jew Zelenskiy (who only learnt Ukrainian right before the elections and never bothered with it before) didn't think it worth giving it a go.

I'm not sure what you mean.

🤣 Broken CD-player?

I've explained that already. I told you - "Explaining only one time. Only for you". Remember? Please find that message and re-read. I've carefully explained my vision regarding this.

What an unidentified general in the National Review claims Russia has on paper and what Russia has in reality is very different.

Russia is slowly taking town after town while the Ukrainians throw what's left of their poor conscripted soldiers into the front line. Once Lysychansk is surrounded in the next week or two you will see a very different conflict. Zelensky is gambling a lot of men on a doomed defence of this town.