| "Most would not agree with you. " Don't agree. 1) The 'NATO' expansion issue is actually a distraction. This is absolutely not about 'NATO on Russias Borders'. While there is a kernel of truth there, it's used as propaganda. 2) Russia, specifically Putin, has been trying to grab Ukraine back for 20 years. There is 100% legitimacy in the fact UKR/RUS have a special cultural relationship - but - that's skewed through Russian Imperial Chauvinism in that they view Ukraine basically as a vassal. That Chauvinism is probably a couple centuries old. More recently, we have the Soviet Dystopian Unreality machine, in which the Truth can be manufactured. Putin is using this to great effect, literally making his bid for Conquest into an issue of 'victimhood'. It's all a bit 'Mein Kampfy'. Putin has been 'very directly intervening' in Ukraine with his laughable stooge Yanukovich for a very long time - rigging elections, killing journalists and protesters, supporting corruption. The West has definitely been intervening and more or less on 'one side' but it has been a lighter touch - and most importantly - the West will ultimately accept the choice of Ukranians. Here's the Paradox: Putin is ex-KGB/Soviet counter intelligence - cynical, repulsive, fearful, skittish + nationalist + authoritarian. But imagine of Putin was a charismatic man. A great speaker. Someone who talked about 'hope' and 'people'. Putin has a giant advantage vis-a-vis the West in Ukraine! Ukranians see Russians as 'bretheren'. If Putin were to have created a 'Positive Russia', messages of hope, clamping down on corruption ... then in 2014 he may literally have been able to give a speech to protesters instead of shooting them. I have peers in Belarus that can flee to Canada - but they don't want to. They are going to 'Georgia or Latvia' - because it's closer to home. This speaks to their natural cultural ties and choices. The 2014 'Revolution' was bloody and a lot of young people were just killed. Police can sometimes get really, really out of hand and that indiscriminate shooting of protesters is something Ukranians will not forget. When the Russians invade, that's what they know is in the future. I honestly think that if Dimitri Medvedev came to power, Ukraine would have joined a 'Eurasian Economic Union', Belarus would have dumped Lukashenko. Literally Putin could have had the Eurasian Union and a more united 'Rus People' by just retiring and shutting his fat mouth. |