[hollerith]

Russia made similar demands on Finland and Austria during the Cold War, and those 2 countries complied, and I'd rather live in Finland or Austria during any 2-year interval during the Cold War than in Ukraine these last 2 years.

The point is that maybe fighting was the right choice for Kiev to make on behalf of its constituents, but it wasn't obviously the right choice, like you seem to think it was.

[mopsi]

> Russia made similar demands on Finland and Austria during the Cold War, and those 2 countries complied

Not only those two. Russia also made such demands to southern neighbours of Finland: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. When they complied, Russians invaded each country, murdered their leaders, sent tens of thousands of top public officials, doctors, lawyers, engineers and other people with leadership skills along with their entire families to die in concentration camps in Siberian wilderness, and established repressive Russification policies to wipe out local population and their culture over time. Those policies lasted until the USSR fell in 1991. Of them, Latvia was hit the hardest. By the time the USSR fell, Latvians were about to become a minority in their own country.

And to say that Finland "complied" is a bit generous. Finland and Russia fought two wars during WWII, which resulted in Russians failing to conquer Finland. Russia had even established a puppet government for Finland like they had one prepared for Ukraine with Medvedchuk in 2022, but disbanded it after the failure to capture Finland. Winter War was such a spectacular disaster for Russians that to this day, Finns hold a mythical reputation in Russian collective consciousness.

As to constituents, the constant stream of information about crimes against local population and systematic destruction of Ukrainian culture in the parts of Ukraine occupied since 2014 leaves little doubt what kind of peace Russia is offering.

[hollerith]

>Russia also made such demands to southern neighbours of Finland: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. When they complied . . .

When do you believe the Baltics states were given such a choice by Russia? I thought that every time they ended up under Russian control they were either invaded without warning or ended up in Russia as a result of Russia's winning wars against Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (where before the war they were the property of Russia's opponent).

[bryanlarsen]

Not even close to similar.

Finland did not demilitarize, and Austria was never part of Russia's historical borders.

[hollerith]

Finland consulted with Moscow on all significant defense decisions, didn't join NATO, nor the EU, and Moscow was its biggest trading partner.

>Austria was never part of Russia's historical borders.

And from that you conclude what? I don't see how that supports your point.

[bryanlarsen]

Finland purchased lots of military hardware from the Soviet Union. I'm sure Ukraine would have been willing to sign a deal that enabled/required them to buy lots of military hardware from Russia. That wasn't the deal on the table.

Austria, unlike Finland or Ukraine, has and had a much lower fear of a Russian invasion.

[hollerith]

>Austria, unlike Finland or Ukraine, has and had a much lower fear of a Russian invasion.

Not in 1945, that is for sure. As an ally of the Nazis, Austria was probably shocked and delighted that they weren't invaded in 1945. So, I'm going to assume your reply pertains to the later decades of the Cold War.

But let's recap your argument. You're saying that even though appeasing Russia (by not joining NATO) might have been the right move for Austria during the later decades of the Cold War, Austria's experience is not relevant to Ukraine's situation because Ukraine has a higher fear of a Russian invasion.

It seems to me that is backwards. It seems to me that it is states like for example Mexico or India that Russia has little strategic interest in and that are too far away for Russia to be able to attack that can ignore Russian demands, and that the closer a country is to Russia, and the more Russia perceives that country to be a threat to Russia if the country were to choose to enter into a military alliance with one of Russia's enemies, the more seriously the country should consider acceding to Russian demands not to enter into such alliances.

[mopsi]

Finland also built up a massive army to make any further invasion attempts as costly as possible, and with Helsinki Accords, got Russians to agree not to violently change borders in Europe, which they adhered to until Putin chose to invade Ukraine. That changed the calculus for Finland and now Finland is in NATO.

Finland is a very poor example, because for over half a century they did exactly what you recommend, and then re-evaluated and abandoned their strategy in a month when Putin invaded Ukraine.

[hollerith]

>Finland is a very poor example, because for over half a century they did exactly what you recommend, and then re-evaluated and abandoned their strategy in a month when Putin invaded Ukraine.

Finland stopped appeasing Russia after the strategic situation had fundamentally changed, and if Ukraine had decided to appease Russia in 2022, they could've waited (in peace) for a similar change.

Specifically, the change was that Russia became weaker and lost direct control over territories like the Baltic states and particularly Ukraine that it cares about a lot more than it cares about Finland, so obviously Russia is going to try to use its dimished resources to regain control over Ukraine and the Baltics before they start caring as much about Finland as they did earlier.