[Paradigma11]

If you look at the actions of Russia it seems pretty clear that this conflict is nothing else than a protracted attempt to subjugate and destroy ukraine. All those legions of justifications are just noise to sow dissent so russia can do as it wants.

And yes, if a nation is under constant attack by a far more powerful neighbour that denies its right to exist ugly things and strange bedfellows are bound to happen. The ukraines didnt turn away the Nazis of the Azov and russia is using the Wagner Group Nazis and thugs like Igor Girkin whose people shoot down passenger flights.

Putin is practicing the kind of politics that was the norm for most of human history, there really is no reason to be flummoxed by it.

[OrvalWintermute]

Actually,

I think the US is on a long campaign for regime change in Russia.

Part of baking that cake includes ingredients like destabilizing former soviet republics, weakening their borders, utilizing hostile NGOs in Russia, and in former soviet republics, and the economic warfare. Fomenting a coup in Ukraine was part of that plan.

Unfortunately, we've driven Russia rather straight into the arms to China, and set up the conditions for de-dollarization. Russia + China + Pakistan + Venezuela + North Korea + many others have now the means and motive to counterbalance and resist.

Russia invading Ukraine is merely seizing territory before it becomes weaponized against them in the form of an invasion staging ground. Given Russian gaps in incoming missile awareness, and the respective short distance to Moscow, they have reasons to be concerned about a hostile enemy on their border. Given Russian experience and nearness, they are likely to be incredibly scrappy as this is an existential threat to them.

The same with missiles in Cuba for us, and look what we did as a response?

[Paradigma11]

I dont think the west was especially interested in a regime change for the most part. Why? Nobody cared. Russia has to sell its ressources anyway and its cleptocracy is unable to transform the economy into a powerful contender. Its going to be fun to see russia as a chinese vassal and how china will put up with Putins paranoia and egomania.

Putin is just like a bigger version of Kim Jong Un who needs to be coddled and given a place on the world stage otherwise he will generate some stink one way or the other.

Those NGOs have been in russia since the fall of the SU and it was the russian state that changed and turned hostile to them. I dont think that this has been anticipated at that time.

Can you please describe a plausible scenario to me where an NATO invasion on moscow generating from ukraine does not end in a nuclear holocaust, same as from the baltics or any other place?

Yep, the US response during the cuba missile crisis was a pretty insane shitshow. Thankfully cooler and wiser heads in the SU were able to defuse the situation.

Putin already told G. W. Bush 2008 that ukraine was no real country and he spent the last 8 years trying to fix that historic mistake.

[bertjk]

It seems to me that both sides, through negotiation, arrived at the "correct" answer to the problem, which was withdrawal of missiles from Cuba and Turkey. In what way was the US response considered a shitshow, and why are US negotiators not considered as cool and wise as the SU ones here, considering they had to ultimately arrive at the same place?

[Paradigma11]

But the cuban missile crisis incurred the cost of risking nuclear war.

And what for?

Both parties had sufficient capabilities to achieve total destruction of the enemy, missiles in cuba and turkey or not. Plus there already were 150+ nuclear weapons on cuba that the US didnt know about and that the SU was prepared to gift to Castro to placate him. But Castro seemed to unstable so the SU retrieved those in the end.

The US response nearly led to a nuclear war for no strategic gain and even then it nearly led to a nuclear armed Cuba on its doorstep.