[ipnon]

Russian security support is also not recent! The primary condition of Ukraine's denuclearization was that Russia, along with the United States, France, and UK, would defend Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial claims perpetually. It seems one of these parties signed with disappearing ink.

[nekcihc]

Exactly - there is no such reputation for Russia and it has proven once again, that words of Russians are not even worth what paper is worth, but for everybody else - it is a trap. It was really naive to give such guarantees - they could be more realistic and demand, that Russia at least remove military bases from territory of Ukraine. Even the current events were because of fears to lose Sevastopol - pride of USSR military(which did nothing in WW2).

US and other signing power reputations is worth more(than Russians) and rest of the world is watching. US has already lost a lot of soft power and this entrapment is another dent in reputation for vaning superpower.

[pydry]

Remember when the US promised to leave Libya alone if they denuclearized and then Khadaffi got a rusty bayonet jammed up his back side?

That one is why Putin wanted anybody except Hillary to be President.

Or when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker famously promised that NATO would “not expand one inch eastward” of Germany?

The US developed collective amnesia over that.

[reducesuffering]

> Or when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker famously promised that NATO would “not expand one inch eastward” of Germany?

You've fallen for Russian disinformation. This lie keeps getting spread around and corrected. Baker mentioned this to Gorbachev in preliminary talks for the treaty after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as a "what if? what concessions would the USSR then make?" It was then immediately struck down as an option by other US bureaucrats, never made it into the treaty, and Gorbachev never even mentioned it again until 2008 when he said US never promised this but expanding NATO into Baltics and such was against the "spirit" of the talks. One person, even a Secretary of State, spitballing ideas about what a treaty would look like is not even close to any sort of agreement between entire superpowers.

[pydry]

It happened multiple times. It is not a lie, no matter how much the US state department tries to double down on the amnesia.

>The former idea about “closer to the Soviet borders” is written down not in treaties but in multiple memoranda of conversation between the Soviets and the highest-level Western interlocutors (Genscher, Kohl, Baker, Gates, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major, Woerner, and others) offering assurances throughout 1990 and into 1991 about protecting Soviet security interests and including the USSR in new European security structures. The two issues were related but not the same. Subsequent analysis sometimes conflated the two and argued that the discussion did not involve all of Europe. The documents published below show clearly that it did.

https://mltoday.com/new-document-us-promised-not-to-expand-n...

Russia has publicly expressed regret that it did not get the wording in a treaty though it holds to the idea that assurances made outside of a legal framework are not worthless, whereas to an American legalistic mind it appears, they are.

Probably it would have made no difference anyway. There's no independent court of international law to adjudicate. Treaties and memoranda arent all that different in the end.

It could be partly cultural. I've noticed when dealing with Americans the idea that you cant expect people to keep their word if it's not explicitly written into a contract is quite common. It's also idiosyncratically American - I havent noticed this word-is-worthless/contracts-sacrosanct "if we take you for a ride it's your fault" attitude elsewhere.

[reducesuffering]

> Russia has publicly expressed regret that it did not get the wording in a treaty though it holds to the idea that assurances made outside of a legal framework are not worthless, whereas to an American legalistic mind it appears, they are.

Russia isn't even holding to an actual legal treaty about respecting the sovereign territorial integrity of Ukraine and you're exclusively pissed at Americans for assurances outside of a legal framework?

[dragonwriter]

> you're exclusively pissed at Americans for assurances outside of a legal framework

...that didn't happen anyway and are propaganda that exists only to support the Russia violation of their actual treaty with Ukraine.

[pydry]

The expansion of NATO came first in 97- at a point when Russia was militarily at its weakest, and a drunk American puppet was in charge.

Crimea would likely still belong to Ukraine if NATO hadnt done that - eastern europe being a buffer being the presumption built into the negotiations. There was some trust before. There is none now.

As it was, the pushback on NATO against the vulnerable, much invaded western border once Russia recovered economic and military strength was inevitable.

As inevitable as the NATO invasion and occupation of Afghanistan when in 2001 the Taliban dared to request evidence and a trial while Americans bayed for blood.

[dragonwriter]

> Russia has publicly expressed regret that it did not get the wording in a treaty

At the time in question, Russia wasn't a sovereign subject of international law, but a subordinate entity within the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev, who was a somewhat important figure in the USSR government at the time, and likely to know, has explicitly stated that such assurances we're not given, nor was the matter negotiated [0] (it is true that the possibility or it being an item on the table seems to have been raised as an inducement to the USSR to participate in resolution of German reunification, but an offer that an issue can be in the table to get someone to the table is not a commitment, even informal, on the anything besides allowing discussion should it be raised.)

[0] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-...

[pydry]

>Gorbachev: “I do think that they could have done more. Much of what has since happened has been directly related to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We cannot blame anyone for the dissolution of the Soviet Union. However, many people in the West were secretly rubbing their hands and felt something like a flush of victory – including those who had promised us: ‘We will not move one centimetre further East.’”

Brookings is about as useful for proving a point on Russia as RT. Might as well quote Trump on who won the last election.

[nekcihc]

The main issue here is to remember, that promises has to be given to US, to other countries - especially neighbours and to various clans of Libya and citizens of Libya - especially to young and poor hot-heads who are quick to blame their government and Leader. Then and only then you can have guarantee that you, being as a ruler of Libya are not getting rusty trombone... erm, that might be more pleasant, but apparently it was rusty pipe, that was performed on Kadaffi.

Looking how Putin is performing in Russia, it seems more than clear that he will get his rusty pipe in his anus, because the path of getting it is way too similar... Kadaffi got his rusty pipe, after his Navalny-level opponents were forced out and killed and the ones that came next were not into sophiscated and educated arguments, but went straight in with the pipe... and surprise surprise - they were new generation of Libyans, born in Lkadaffi Libya and bred by Khadaffi.

U.S. Secretary of State James Baker did not had authority to promise that NATO would “not expand one inch eastward” of Germany. Also in a real nonimaginary world, such "promises" and talks has to be realized as written agreements on paper. Completely different from what Russia signed in a very real Budapest Memorandum.

[pydry]

Khadaffi was killed by American backed rebels supported by NATO. NATO might as well have pulled the trigger.

The main issue is that the US state department (led by Hillary at the time) made it abundantly clear to every tinpot dictator in the world with that stunt that the two worst things they can do are A) denuclearize and B) trust America's word.

North Korea took note of what happened in Libya and as a result Kim Jong Un got a nice little tour of Trump's presidential car.

The word of the US is trash. The security guarantees it gives are trash. They've made it clear that they respect power but everything else gets lip service.

[nickff]

It seems like none of the other parties are defending Ukraine's sovereignty, and one is violating it (Russia). None of them seem willing to keep their defense commitments.

[sharikous]

To be fair, given the 2014 events, all the parties signed with disappearing ink. Russia invaded, but the US, France and UK failed their obligation too.

[garaetjjte]

How? Budapest Memorandum only required parties to respect borders, not to defend them. They only need to "seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance" when there is threat of using nuclear weapons.

[pydry]

Putin's claim is that he signed it with the legitimate government of Ukraine and that Ukraine is no longer legitimately governed since the Maidan "coup".

It's similar in nature to the UK's insistence that Venezuelan gold cant be sent back to Venezuela - since it is not legitimately governed. Or when revolutions take place and new governments decide that the debts of the "old" government dont apply to the new.

US also threatened sanctions against Ukraine in 2004 in violation of article 3, presumably under the same theory (& because they just didnt like yanukovych).

International law is mostly a matter might makes right and/or opinion it seems. There is no court, after all. One side's coup is another's spontaneous democratic uprising and one side's free and fair elections is another party's rigged ballot.

[nekcihc]

UK has not seized Venezuelan gold - as soon as Venezuela will get recognized government, UK will restore Venezuelan rights to their gold.

How this even compares to Crimea? Russia has no intention to give Crimea back - no matter what government is in Ukraine. Russia was already very nervous about Sevastopol naval base under Yanukovich, when the rent agreement was running out and that is the only reason for seizing Crimea, as this allows it to maintain than naval base. It is also a theft, as so far Russia was paying rent for that base and now it doesn't have to.

[pydry]

Ask Venezuelans what should happen to the gold and majority would say give it back. Access was cut off precisely when they needed funds the most.

Crimea won't be given back, no. They ran a vote and asked the majority ~85% ethnic Russian Crimeans which country they'd like to belong to and, after maidan, the outcome was a forgone conclusion with or without the boycotts.

Ukraine and western powers tellingly opted to argue that the vote was wrong because it was in violation of Ukraine's constitution rather than it didnt reflect the will of those voting.

Even if Western powers didnt routinely flout international law when it suited them (e.g. supporting Israeli settlements on stolen land), it's a little bit awkward to declare a democratic vote illegal if you're trying to position yourself as the world's #1 fan of democracy.

Ironically if America could have held itself to higher ethical standards in the last two decades it would probably be in a better position to push Russia's new expansion back.