Europe Backdrop to the war in Ukraine

[Gethelred]

This is the thread for the geopolitics, history and framework around the Russia-Ukraine conflict. If you want to discuss the events of the war, head over to this thread:

Europe - War in Ukraine - Thread 4 - thread rules updated

This is the thread for discussing the War in Ukraine. Should you want to discuss the geopolitics, the history, or an interesting tangent, head over here: https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/backdrop-to-the-war-in-ukraine.1302028/ If a post isn't directly concerning the events of the war or...

www.bigfooty.com

 

[wannabejack]

...

Throughout, the Putin regime had maintained that the membership of Ukraine in NATO was a bridge too far.
...

From an article March 2022
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has accepted that his country will not become a member of NATO, one of the demands made by Russia before it invaded.
The admission that Kyiv will not join NATO could change the stakes for diplomacy, which has so far failed to end the hostilities nearly three weeks on from the start of the invasion on February 24.

Zelensky was willing to agree to not joining NATO early on during the invasion. Putin could have withdrawn his troops.
“The membership of Ukraine in NATO was a bridge too far” was just another excuse to invade Ukraine. Putin continued the invasion.

 

[Chief]

In the end Putin will get what he wants, I think. Not enough will from Ukraine's allies. Not enough people in Ukraine so war weariness setting in. Sad but I think true.

 

[IlovethePies]

This ignores the openly tsarist and imperial aims that Putin himself has outlined.

He would be chuffed you’re doing his homework for him.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

Yes, Putin utilises Russian nationalism to justify the war, like every political figure ever who has ever launched a war. His extreme nationalism and Great Russia chauvinism is the basis for attempting to mobilise domestic support within Russia for the "military operation".

There are extreme right wing, Russian chauvinist, fascistic elements in the Russian military who indeed would be even more extreme than Putin in their aim to incorporate Ukraine into Greater Russia. These layers, and other fascist elements in the Russian oligarchy, would indeed by applying pressure on Putin to respond to Ukrainian missile attacks with NATO ballistic missiles on Russian territory with far less restraint than he is now.

Should these elements either persaude Putin, or overthrow him and seize political control of Russia, they will not hesitate to retaliate with missile strikes on European NATO capitals, conventional at first, but we all know where that leads.

Hence, for all those fools here claiming that "Putin is too gutless" to use a nuclear weapon, this is just such a simplistic analysis. The Russian ruling class is not one monolith united around Putin. It is a bubbling cauldron of conflict, containing some of the most fascist and unhinged elements (just like Zelensky's regime).

There are fractions within it which are deeply unhappy with how "moderate" Putin's policy thus far has been. These elements could rise to the top, - for example, if the Russian economy starts to collapse, or in the event of a substantial NATO military attack. A successful coup against Putin led by these forces - which are even more violently right wing and ultranationalist character than Putin himself can lead in only one direction: the spread of the war across the European continent first, and then nuclear escalation.

Unless this war is stopped, the logic on both sides is to escalation and all that implies.

 

[IlovethePies]

Repeats Russia's disinformation as if from the textbook, but aghast anyone might claim its a defence of Putin's honour.

^Repeats the standard pro US./NATO response.

"What we say is true and must be believed unconditionally, and whoever disagrees with us is automatically an agent of Putin. "

 

[Zidane98]

^Repeats the standard pro US./NATO response.

"What we say is true and must be believed unconditionally, and whoever disagrees with us is automatically an agent of Putin. "

There isn't a single poster in here who supports US/NATO.

Plenty that support Ukraine and its right to not be subject to a fascist imperialist invasion.

This is not a new thing, Russians have been invading, genociding Ukranians going back to the 1800s.

 

[Aussie in exile]

^Repeats the standard pro US./NATO response.

"What we say is true and must be believed unconditionally, and whoever disagrees with us is automatically an agent of Putin. "

Like me are you of the opinion that Russia should withdraw from all Ukrainian land?

 

[wannabejack]

US Congress issues resolution to recognize Russian actions in Ukraine as genocide - Euromaidan Press

A bipartisan group of US House Representatives has reintroduced a resolution calling for Russia's actions in Ukraine to be recognized as genocide.

euromaidanpress.com

The allegations of genocide against Ukrainians by Russian forces are rooted in systematic patterns of violence, targeted killings, and cultural erasure, with evidence emerging, for example, from places like Bucha and Mariupol, where Russian troops executed civilians en masse.

 

[Chief]

US Congress issues resolution to recognize Russian actions in Ukraine as genocide - Euromaidan Press

A bipartisan group of US House Representatives has reintroduced a resolution calling for Russia's actions in Ukraine to be recognized as genocide.

euromaidanpress.com

The allegations of genocide against Ukrainians by Russian forces are rooted in systematic patterns of violence, targeted killings, and cultural erasure, with evidence emerging, for example, from places like Bucha and Mariupol, where Russian troops executed civilians en masse.

Apparently only after they failed a Russian language exam.

 

[IlovethePies]

A new book by Professor Ivan Katchanovski and published by Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature is now available online with free access.

It is the first scholarly book to comprehensively analyse the events at Maidan in 2014. In it, he shows that the massacre of protestors almost certainly was carried out by neo-fascists in a false-flag operation to overthrow the Yanukovich government and bring to power the extreme right wing/fascistic pro-US/NATO regime, leading immediately to civil war and conflict with Russia in the Donbas region.

Finally the truth about the Maidan coup and the nature of the political forces which carried it out is surfacing.

 

[wannabejack]

The Maidan Shooting: Conspiracy Theories and Unanswered Questions

Historian William Risch talks about the investigation of the February 20 Maidan shootings

commons.com.ua

William Risch is a professor of history at Georgia College in the United States. His area of expertise is Modern European, Soviet and Ukrainian history. He is the author of The Ukrainian West: Culture and the Fate of Empire in Soviet Lviv.

This section criticizes Ivan Katchanowski's version of the 20 February shootings, providing publicly available evidence about those events.

The murky history of the Maidan shootings, and the failure to bring justice to the victims, legitimated a hybrid war that has since become an all-out war against Ukraine’s existence as a state. That struggle for Ukraine’s existence has made a more complex explanation of the Maidan shootings even more difficult. Instead of bringing justice and the rule of law to Ukraine, its revolution of 2013 - 14 seems swept aside as geopolitical forces have turned the Heavenly Hundred into a tiny drop in an ever-growing ocean of blood.

 

[Zidane98]

A new book by Professor Ivan Katchanovski and published by Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature is now available online with free access.

It is the first scholarly book to comprehensively analyse the events at Maidan in 2014. In it, he shows that the massacre of protestors almost certainly was carried out by neo-fascists in a false-flag operation to overthrow the Yanukovich government and bring to power the extreme right wing/fascistic pro-US/NATO regime, leading immediately to civil war and conflict with Russia in the Donbas region.

Finally the truth about the Maidan coup and the nature of the political forces which carried it out is surfacing.

You're going to have to do better than Katchanovski who is a known promoter of Russian propaganda. Below is a concise and clear dissemination of all the false claims Katchanovski makes

The Maidan Shooting: Conspiracy Theories and Unanswered Questions

Historian William Risch talks about the investigation of the February 20 Maidan shootings

commons.com.ua

How's your internet connection going these days with nodex tovarisch?

 

[Zidane98]

Putin's propaganda man Dugin on Ukraine:





Imagine anyone trying to argue that Russia wasn't imperialistic.

 

[Anzacpaul]

Putin's propaganda man Dugin on Ukraine:





Imagine anyone trying to argue that Russia wasn't imperialistic.

BUT BUT NATO SOMETHING SOMETHING US PUPPET WARMONGERS NATO

 

[wannabejack]

 

[wannabejack]

https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-us-armenia-ties-says-washington-plays-destabilising-role-caucasus-2025-01-14/

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russia values its close relations with Armenia and that the United States, which is set to sign a strategic partnership agreement with Armenia, had never played a stabilising role in the region.

Armenia's parliament last week backed a bill to launch the country's bid to join the European Union, although a rapid accession is unlikely.

Yerevan's relations with Moscow meanwhile have soured over what Armenia casts as Russia's failure to defend it from neighbouring rival Azerbaijan, including during a brief war in 2023.
Though Armenia remains a treaty ally of Russia, it has said repeatedly that it does not support Moscow's war in Ukraine and has sent humanitarian aid to Kyiv.

 

[wannabejack]

Czech Republic Finishes Pipeline Extension, Ending Reliance on Russian Oil - The Moscow Times

The Czech Republic no longer needs to import Russian oil following the completion of an expansion to the Transalpine Pipeline (TAL) from Italy, Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced Tuesday.

www.themoscowtimes.com

"The construction of this expansion has now been completed," Fiala told reporters. "Russia can no longer blackmail us, and we have a guarantee that we can completely supply ourselves with oil from the West."