[thomascgalvin]

Putin is partially responsible, but it seems like we're in a perfect storm of price increases. The entire supply chain was disrupted by COVID, and we still haven't fixed all of it. That is almost certainly a bigger factor than the invasion of Ukraine.

[mistrial9]

can we just get rid of the obvious "scapegoating" and look at the real, actual causes?

[cudgy]

What about the Biden administration itself being responsible for cornering Putin with talk of Ukraine joining NATO, which Putin stated many times was a red line. Furthermore, US had agreed to not push NATO farther east, but its actions were in complete opposition to that agreement.

Biden administration has cornered themselves as well into an unnecessary conflict with little chance of an exit ramp. Dangerous stuff.

[supertrope]

Comrade when you egregiously break your promises you cannot expect others to keep acting the same way toward you. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/what-putin-fears-most/

[cudgy]

“The more serious cause of tensions has been a series of democratic breakthroughs and popular protests for freedom throughout the 2000s, what many refer to as the “Color Revolutions.” Putin believes that Russian national interests have been threatened by what he portrays as U.S.-supported coups. After each of them—Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, the Arab Spring in 2011, Russia in 2011–12, and Ukraine in 2013–14—Putin has pivoted to more hostile policies toward the United States, and then invoked the NATO threat as justification for doing so.”

“These episodes of substantive Russia-NATO cooperation undermine the argument that NATO expansion has always and continuously been the driver of Russia’s confrontation with the West over the last thirty years.”

The article you linked is all over the place with its reasoning. How does it reconcile the two above points? There is a great deal of hand waving with a sole focus on democratic models of government…sounds straight out of the CIA playbook that attempted to justify the US tangled up in so many conflicts for the sake of democracy.

Also, who said NATO expansion has always been the driver of confrontation?

And finally, Ukraine is and has been a far cry from an independent democracy. It is a fractious country that has clear divisions of tribal and ethnic conflict. Their elections and politics have been heavily influenced by Russia and the United States. Biden has been at the center of heavy US influence in a huge country that has been the source of many wars against Russia for centuries. Ignoring the perspective of Russia and only focusing on democracy is critically short-sighted.