[mopsi]

> But that doesn't change the fact that the US was provoking Russia by signing everyone up and the US acting on that expansionist urge in Ukraine seems to be the major driver of this war.

???

But that's exactly the opposite of what happened. Ukraine and Georgia desired to join the NATO like everyone else. The US, Germany and a handful of others dashed those hopes in 2008 due to Russian pressure. This lowered the risk for Russia and they immediately invaded Georgia, and a few years later Ukraine, and expanded the invasion in 2022 after they saw the shameful retreat from Afghanistan as a further sign of US' weakness and unwillingness to support their allies.

Not American expansionist urge, but the utterly short-sighted belief in "we must not provoke Russia" is how we got here. Russians are not provoked by strength, but by weakness. Belief in enemy's weakness enables dangerous illusions like "3 days to Kyiv".

[roenxi]

> The US, Germany and a handful of others dashed those hopes in 2008 due to Russian pressure.

That is a ruse on the part of the US and I don't know why anyone expects it to be taken seriously given what we see post 2022. NATO considers Ukraine to be part of their strategic territory. They're dumping 10s to 100s of billions of dollars into Ukraine's defence. They've claimed to have been a part of killing something like 300,000 Russian soldiers. They're explaining to anyone who'll listen that the relationship will be formalised as soon as possible. It looks like they've been working on this for years prior to the invasion in fact - unless you believe that the NATO military planners are so incompetent they didn't have contingency plans for Russia invading Ukraine. There is even the obvious pattern of behaviour on the part of the US here regarding NATO expansion.

The hopes of Ukraine were never dashed.

[mopsi]

> They're dumping 10s to 100s of billions of dollars into Ukraine's defence. They've claimed to have been a part of killing something like 300,000 Russian soldiers.

This has come only after years of war against Ukraine and refusal by Russia to take any offered exit ramp.

When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, Obama refused to provide lethal aid to Ukraine. After Russia launched the full-scale invasion in 2022, the US infamously offered Zelensky a ride and not ammo. Countries like Germany were openly mocked for providing only 5000 helmets. It took approximately half a year before any considerable aid began to appear in Ukraine. They got their first American tanks (only 31 provided so far) full year and a half into the war.

NATO countries and other allies have consistently dragged their feet and done too little too late. This allowed Russia to recover from the initial shock, and their armed forces are larger than at the start of the war. This year, they are forming two new armies that are larger than the ground forces of UK, France, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, and a number of other countries COMBINED.

Instead of a conspiratorial ruse, European governments have finally recognized that Russia is a rapidly growing threat to entire Europe, and that's why they started to pour a lot of resources into Ukraine starting around fall 2023, and into rebuilding their own militaries. Russians are wiping one Ukrainian town after another from the earth with no indication of stopping anytime soon. At worst, we can expect a second front launched from Belarus against Poland and Lithuania.

> unless you believe that the NATO military planners are so incompetent they didn't have contingency plans for Russia invading Ukraine

It is very obvious that there were no serious plans for such turn of events. Many NATO countries, including mine, were caught by surprise and have had to provided military aid to Ukraine at the expense of own security from readiness stocks that cannot be replenished for many years to come, but might be needed to fulfill NATO obligations, should Russia broaden the war.

Not only were NATO countries unprepared, but several key countries didn't even believe such development could be possible at all. The chief of French military intelligence was infamously fired over inadequate assessments related to Russian invasion of Ukraine.

> The hopes of Ukraine were never dashed.

Yes they were. Even today, nobody is willing to give any firm commitments. At the last NATO summit, Biden refused to support NATO invitation for Ukraine and instead lobbied for a vague "Ukraine will become a member of NATO" statement without any specified date, to great frustration of Ukrainians.

The story you are trying to spin is the polar opposite of observable reality.