[ivan_gammel]

The Economist has traditionally the worst coverage of Russia amongst Western media. To the point where it starts looking like it is something personal for the editors: always the same narrative, facts and opinions that not fit in the picture are conveniently ignored etc.

This article has a lot of pure speculations, that oversimplify the internal politics and decision making process in Russia. Yes, there’s a relatively small inner circle of people loyal to Putin and sharing his views. Yes, those views are conservative and nationalist. Are those people committed to a war and occupation of Ukraine? Unless you are reading minds you cannot be sure, and for the same reason we do not believe in the world government, it does not make sense to believe in this war conspiracy, when there are explanations of Russian strategy that do not rely on insanity.

[invalidname]

Literally everything the west said is happening before our eyes. Russia is mounting a false flag operation trying to find an "excuse" for war.

They were supposed to finish the "exercise" and instead they're adding troops. Will you "accept this as facts" when they march through the entire country or will that just be "an extended exercise". I understand it's hard to admit your own country is run by a power hungry dictator. Mine is too. It sucks.

[Koshkin]

> hard to admit your own country is run by a power hungry dictator

That is not hard. What is hard, is to realize that sometimes politics transcends particulars of the power structure and the character of the ruler, when it looks more and more like a nation has to do what it must, given the circumstances (no matter how they got there).

[ivan_gammel]

My country is Germany, the party I voted for is in the government and I’m pretty happy with our current foreign policy and the person responsible for it. I fully support the ban on shipping military hardware to the zones of conflict and focus on diplomatic effort.

That said, there is no evidence that this military buildup will result in anything and all those parrot talks about invasion or false flag operations are based only on mind guessing and wild assumptions of Putin’s insanity. There is more plausible explanation of what is going on. To understand it, it is necessary to look at the Russian military doctrine, its history of diplomatic interactions with NATO and the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations. Something that most of American and British media are apparently too lazy to do (German media are trying hard to understand what’s really happening and to present a nuanced picture).

[invalidname]

Sure. All predictions are guessing. Based on prior facts. E.g. annexation of Crimea.

We're literally seeing multiple reports from independent sources of bombings in those areas. The whole kindergarten bombing clearly there to trigger action that would result in a war.

This also piles up on what they say on national TV, the fact that they issue Russian passports to people in the area to justify the whole thing etc.

Will they eventually invade?

Who knows, that's like predicting the weather. But we don't guess the weather. We use maps and facts to make educated guesses based on facts.

Are they trying to trigger a situation that will give them an excuse to invade?

Sure. Obvious as daylight.

[tim333]

> for the same reason we do not believe in the world government, it does not make sense to believe in this war conspiracy

I fail to see what the same reason is. We don't have a world government. War seems quite likely.