[PeterisP]

Why do you believe that the Russian reaction to pulling back would be to pull back as well? If anything, all experience shows that they'll use that to do a power grab in the neighbouring countries instead. Treating "sphere of influence" as a valid concept is immoral, it essentially means allowing Russia to do whatever they want to others against their will; there's a good reason why their neighbours are allying with the west - it's because they want protection from being "sphereofinfluenced".

If anything, we can say that the current sanctions and other have been somewhat effective in deescalating violence, and if the west would have pulled back, then we'd have Ukraine dismembered by now through increased direct Russian military involvement.

Nothing "sets back" Russia to cold war mentality; they have never left it, won't will without a regime change, they won't stop treating the west as their enemy and they will aggressively (re)take the now independent states we let them to.

[Udik]

Do you think the West has no sphere of influence?

And, was it Russia that expanded to the NATO borders, or were the NATO borders that expanded to eventually reach Russia?

[PeterisP]

I'm saying that the whole concept of spheres of influence is outdated, immoral and invalid. Instead, you should think in terms of alliances or some other concept that gives agency to the people there, not "the West" or Russia.

The sovereign countries themselves must get a choice - if they want to join NATO, that is their right, and Russia shouldn't get a veto (nor even a vote) in that. Countries should be free to join/leave the "spheres" at will, not be placed there or given or taken.

And, actually, the whole reason why NATO is at their borders is the Russian insistence of their sphere of influence. If Russia agreed in practice that their borders stop where they are and that they won't ever poke beyond them, then their neigbours wouldn't need to even consider NATO.

[gspetr]

> And, actually, the whole reason why NATO is at their borders is the Russian insistence of their sphere of influence.

Uhh, no.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#German_reu...

[jevgeni]

Nobody forced for example the Baltic states into NATO. They did that because these countries felt threatened by Russia. I think there were even referendums on this and they came out overwhelmingly positive.

The belief in Ukraine, however, was that Russia was an ally, did not pose a threat and therefore Ukraine should have not seeked NATO membership. That assumption proved to be wrong now.