[user3939382]

I think Russia's Article 51 defense for the invasion is, to be charitable, a stretch, and that the invasion is probably illegal. I say probably because I'm not a lawyer and it's a complicated matter of international law. Russia does at least have a cohesive argument. If anyone's curious, it has to do with defending the republics it recognized as independent, and then requiring the invasion to have a reasonable chance at that defense.

My view is that the US baited Putin into this by making repeated overtures about Ukraine joining NATO (while Zelenskyy has himself said that he was told privately it wouldn't be admitted). This happened as Putin repeatedly said that Ukraine's NATO membership was a red line for him. We saw the Cuban Missle Crisis and our reaction. To me, from the Russian perspective, this is akin to Russia making preparations for a deal to put nukes in Tijuana.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces have spent the last 7 or 8 years shelling Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine, in violation of the (signed) Minsk accords. This is largely encouraged and participated in by forces that include entire units of Nazi sympathizers. We'd do well to bear in mind that from a uniquely Russian perspective, Nazism is often associated as much with being anti-Russian as it is anti-Jewish.

Then we have leaked audio of US politicians (Victoria Nuland) hand picking the Ukrainian leadership after the 2014 coup that appears to have been backed by the US, and the far-right Nazi groups, to oust their democratically-elected (pro-Russian) president. I won't even get into the Hunter Biden stuff except to say that the NYT recently said his laptop was real.

In sum, what Russia is doing is probably a war crime (war of aggression) and the whole situation is tragic. The US shares a lot of the blame, has done nothing but stoke the flames which is destroying Ukraine rather than push to broker a peace deal that includes the Ukrainian neutrality it had decided on anyway. The lack of open discussion about any of these issues is disheartening. I'm suspicious that the narrative being pushed by the US media has a lot more to do with the arms industry than a moral judgement by the US, which is shown through other ongoing conflicts (Yemen, Somalia) not to exist.

[samastur]

It's comments like this that probably result in people accusing of being pro-Russia.

You skip over annexation of Crimea and gas-rich parts of Ukraine, over Putin's rant how Ukraine shouldn't be a country, how all those new NATO countries don't have nukes stationed in them and the whole European NATO standing army is not larger than Russia's. And to top of it all, you think it's a complicated legal issue if a country that wasn't attacked or was about to attacks another one.

[user3939382]

> you think it's a complicated legal issue if a country that wasn't attacked or was about to attacks another one

It is. Look up Article 51 of the UN charter. Russia's case is that there was an imminent attack on its sovereign ally. As I said, I don't think that would hold up, but it's a logical argument. "Country wasn't attacked" is not how this law works.

> annexation of Crimea

I have a similar opinion there, which is that Russia was on a poor legal footing for that action, although did proffer a defense, but that the US played a large role in that happening. Recall that simultaneous with that conflict was Ukraine's democratically-elected president being overthrown in a violent coup that by all appearances was backed by the US.

> Putin's rant how Ukraine shouldn't be a country

I didn't comment on that because I've never heard that. I'd have to read his comments to comment myself.

> those new NATO countries don't have nukes stationed in them

If the point here is that NATO participation isn't a threat to Russia, I would just say that of course it is, or the US wouldn't have expanded it.

> the whole European NATO standing army is not larger than Russia's

Germany just said they're increasing their defense budget to 100B euros.

There's a deeper issue here by the way, which is that I'm simply not going to continue to go along with the line that I and, I see, my entire country has been fed my entire life, that America #1, and we're the good guys, and everyone else who doesn't do exactly what we say are the bad guys, and be told who I have to hate and who needs a righteous war to straighten them out.

Every single hot military conflict the US has been involved in in my lifetime has turned out to be immoral, wrong, based on lies, or best-case scenario, absolutely none of our business and not something we should have been involved in. I have zero trust in anything the government, or the media they appear to control, has to say at this point.

[Terretta]

its sovereign ally… logical

What is that, “logically”? Who is sovereign, who is ally, who’s imminently attacked? By invading, that denies Ukraine sovereignty. If you mean Russian sovereignty, it’s not the boss of Ukraine, can’t require it be allied.

Unless, of course, Ukraine isn’t really its own thing. And that’s what Putin’s essay sets up.

> Putin's rant how Ukraine shouldn't be a country

I didn't comment on that because I've never heard that. I'd have to read his comments to comment myself.

It’s a clever piece, and to purport to be unaware undermines every comment you’ve made.

Selectively quoting, the piece argues not that Ukraine is not a country, but that it’s not its own country, has no history standalone, is really more of a greater Russia border land, and makes no cultural or economic sense apart.

- Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Ru...

- The Russian state incorporated the city of Kiev and the lands on the left bank of the Dnieper River, including Poltava region, Chernigov region, and Zaporozhye.

- These territories were referred to as “Malorossia” (Little Russia).

- The name “Ukraine” was used more often in the meaning of the Old Russian word “okraina” (periphery), which is found in written sources from the 12th century, referring to various border territories.

- And the word “Ukrainian”, judging by archival documents, originally referred to frontier guards who protected the external borders.

- …the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians started to form and gain ground among the Polish elite and a part of the Malorussian intelligentsia. Since there was no historical basis – and could not have been any, conclusions were substantiated by all sorts of concoctions…

- Ukraine and Russia have developed as a single economic system over decades and centuries.

- I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.

So: It’s not sovereign on its own. It’s not a real country.

I’m simply not going to continue to … be told

Insofar as that causes you to reject controlled media, consider whether you could turn off US news, stop reading US sites, and instead study journalism, legal opinion, and historically contextualized views on this matter emerging from nations independent of Russia and U.S. both, ideally also outside EU.

[samastur]

What sovereign ally? The breakaway regions are not recognized by anyone but Russia as sovereign and even Russia recognised them just before the attack for which it was clearly preparing for months (realistically years). You don't legalise your actions by unilaterally declaring a new widely-not-shared reality.

Crimea is an even worse example since annexation there happened even without a pretext of defending anyone. It was so blatant disregard of laws that they stripped their uniforms of any identifying insignia and lied about their involvement until they annexed it.

Violent part of the president overthrow came mainly from former president's forces shooting on protesting civilians. The protests started why? Because the corrupt president reneged on his promise to start the process of joining EU. For all your worry about US involvement you seem to be pretty uninterested in Russia's. Ukraine had two presidential elections since.

My comment about NATO is that expansion was not akin to putting nukes directly into Russia's neighbourhood because they are exactly where they were pre-expansion. They are certainly farther from Russia than theirs are from us (Kaliningrad). And NATO is a defensive pact which you may not believe, but the fact that it doesn't have a joint army and certainly not a European army that would even remotely suffice for a plausible successful attack on Russia makes it really hard for me to believe anyone in Russia would seriously worry about countries that have mostly been very reluctant to invest in their own armies and until Russia's invasion could hardly agree on anything of substance.

That Germany intends to increase their defence budget proves exactly nothing since this was a direct consequence of Russia's invasion. Not that long ago their soldiers sometimes used brooms on joint exercises for lack of equipment. I'm sure other defence budgets including probably ours will probably change too as our assumptions have so thoroughly been proven wrong by Russia.

I'm not a US citizen and it is completely up to you how you feel about your own country and its government, but I am from a country that willingly joined NATO. I've been critical of most US military interventions in recent history, but I've also not been blind to Russia's meddling in Europe and elsewhere. It is starting to irk me describing this conflict as US or NATO one since neither is in Ukraine. There's just one country with significant forces in another one's so it really shouldn't be difficult to figure out who the aggressor is.

I don't care if your are a merchant of doubt or just being influenced by them. I do find it bemusing that someone bothered by being labelled as pro-Russian spends so much time finding excuses for their invasion.

[supramouse]

minsk and minsk ii were designed to fail, there's no way either the russian supported separatists or ukraine would abide by them not to mention that russia didn't uphold it's end of the frameworks anyway

the russian idea of 'ukrainian neutrality' would require the US to formally reject the idea of a nations right to self-determination to satisfy the demands of a state that isn't even a peer or on good terms which isn't going to fly it weakens the united states and europe

the rest is minutia, blowback, corruption and handwaving at the end of day this is the stupid game russian leadership setup and wanted to play