[birdymcbird]

> I always figured that Russia wanted to own/control Ukraine, since it's a fertile, resource-rich part of the former USSR (it's a huge grain exporter; consider all the famine warnings since the war began?)

This isn’t the motivation. Putin has been saying since 2007 that NATO expansion is an existential threat to Russia. Now whether we agree with that or not is besides point. They view it that way.

They warned in 2007 Ukraine entering NATO would lead to war, but we basically told Russia that there a has been and they don’t matter. This led to what happened in 2014. Then in 2021, we basically come out in full support of pulling Ukraine into NATO.

What’s happening now is extremely dangerous. Russia can’t win in Ukraine because of west helping Ukraine and their economy is ruined after sanctions. They see this as an end of Russia.

You’re backing them in the corner. This is when rational state actors act irrational. The chance of thermonuclear war is increasing because Russia cannot take on the west in a conventional war.

We had a significant role in how we got to this war, but we won’t ever take responsibility. We pulled out of Afghanistan and now the military industrial complex is making billions through Ukraine.

[amanaplanacanal]

These sounds like the same old Russian talking points. Ukraine is not allowed to choose who it allies with. It obviously shouldn’t fear Russia invading and taking over the country. Even after it has already happened.

[candiodari]

Your argument applies equally to North Korea. Should we accept them invading, say, Japan (or just to make it maximally interesting, Taiwan) just because they may have nukes? (and by that I mean the effective ability to nuke at minimum Seoul by ICBM)

I'm saying "may" because while Russia clearly has the ability to make Nukes, and ICBMs, that would have required constant heavy, maintained, spending on their military that they clearly didn't do for, oh, tanks, air defense, aircraft, new aircraft designs ... At best their Nuclear arsenal is one generation ahead of what the Soviets had, whilst the West's defenses have advanced 5 generations in the same time. I get that's a gamble, but ... Nuclear weapons require constant re-enriching of the warheads fissile material, and maintaining 7000 warheads requires running tens of gigawatts of nuclear power plants without getting any electricity or heating out of them. Not to mention: you need tens of thousands of highly qualified engineers to do it. Are they doing that, not just lying about it? I mean, I get that they're hiding this, but one reason we don't hear much of it could be that it simply doesn't exist anymore. I've never once read an explanation of how this infrastructure survived the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russia is vastly overplaying their hand. We can be sure of that, given the facts.

Second, the Russian economy will die faster than the European or Ukrainian economy over time. Time is not on their side. Russia is slowly losing the ability to attack even without any war, without anyone destroying them. Europe, and European states will gain more and more ability to attack over time. I'm saying whatever their reason was to attack in 2014 and 2022, they will have more reasons to attack as time goes on. This war won't end just because we force it to, it will simply move.

And all of that is assuming we DON'T move away from fossil fuels. If by some miracle we move either transportation or heating of of fossil fuels, then Russia is done for 10 years before such a move is complete. That will definitely kill their ability to support their military. I mean what do you expect Russia to do? Attack France when ITER declares success? Because ITER, and 100 other similar efforts, also are existential threats to Russia.

Russia has "lost", the empire doesn't exist anymore, and the conflict in Ukraine, even if they 100% win, doesn't change that. If their perception is such that if they lose they will use nuclear weapons, then it's unavoidable, and the conclusion is just the opposite of what you suggest.

The correct course of action if Russia will truly will chose to go out in a nuclear "blaze of glory" or if Putin has the ability to "commit suicide by World War 3", then the only option is for NATO to attack Russia, ASAP. For the simple reason that Russia, the empire, is done for.