[pelasaco]

> Like, Russia is actually 'doing the bad things'.

Yes, Russia is doing bad things.. But do we really need or want a third World War because of it? It’s not Ukraine’s fault that Russia invaded, but Ukraine bears responsibility for having been so corrupt over the past 20 years and for being irresponsible given its proximity to Russia. We still don’t know how much of the aid sent to Ukraine is being lost to corruption... So I am not willing to fight this War.

[amanaplanacanal]

You should definitely stay home then. Other people are doing the fighting for you.

[pelasaco]

For me? Definitely not for me. But my country investing my pension, health infrastructure, education system to support their civilians. Even you and all other Ukraine that spend the day online here, are being paid by us. Still, no reason to Europe to go to war for Ukraine, but instead invest our military budget in our NATO partners and preparing to defend them.

[mopsi]

If you ask European military leaders where we should invest and how we should prepare, they'll tell you that strong support of Ukraine is one of the best investments into European defense that you could make at the moment. They calculate that it's better to stop Russia in Ukraine than to face Russia (with additional resources from fully occupied Ukraine) in Poland or elsewhere.

Military leaders are pragmatic people and this is a pragmatic approach. We have a problem. We see that the problem has grown in time and will grow further if ignored. So it's better to deal with the problem now rather than waste valuable time and face an even larger problem in 5 to 8 years.

[pelasaco]

> Military leaders are pragmatic people and this is a pragmatic approach.

Military leaders are politicians. I am in the Military. The official position, is inline with what the political leaders want. Internally, the same Military leaders disagree with the politicians. Internally all say the same: There is no accountability and responsibility in Ukraine. Better is to concentrate our resources where matters: NATO. Ukraine is necessary strategically to consume Russian men, artillery, etc.. That's the military opinion that we hear internally.

[mopsi]

> Military leaders are politicians. I am in the Military. The official position, is inline with what the political leaders want.

That's not the case in countries bordering Russia, starting from Finland and heading south, where military leaders take a lot of pride in being constitutionally independent like supreme court judges. Politicians would very much prefer to hide behind NATO guarantees and pretent that the risk does not exist and that the Americans would come to save us (without specifying any details), whereas military assessments are much more calculated and take into account hard facts like redeployment speed of a brigade or daily ammo expenditure. Assessments from military circles have so far been consistently the closest to how events have actually unfolded.

They case they are presenting is a no-brainer. It is by all measures significantly cheaper - by orders of magnitude - to support Ukraine in halting Russians in Eastern Ukraine than to fight invaders on our home turf.

[pelasaco]

Exactly. They need Ukraine to keep Russia busy. Other than people try to convince us, Men matter. Every single russian soldier that dies, fighting in Ukraine, is one less potential barbarian in their border, that's all truth, but people should understand, it's not about saving Ukraine, but about protecting themselves.

[FrustratedMonky]

What would Reagan have said to this?

"USSR, why bother pushing back, not my problem, can't I just go to the mall and hang out?"

[pelasaco]

That's not how it goes. We are supporting Ukraine in a level that nobody does. Germany is investing the pension from everyone under 45 years old, education and health system, just to support ukraine. All Ukraine online warriors here in Hackernews, are here being support financially by us. It doesn't mean however we should go to War for it. The online warriors here aren't there too, but here in Germany, "figthing online" with +1 or -1...

[FrustratedMonky]

Guess I was thinking in terms of 'support'.

During the Cold War, the US and Russia were not 'At War'. But US did financial support a ton of countries, with a lot of money.

So why not do that now? Still fighting Russia. Still not 'head to head', but with Proxies.

This seems like arguing to stop supporting our Proxy and let Russia take them. But there is still an argument to not give up.

Lets say Russia wins, and re-integrates Ukraine.

Now what does the world look like in 20 years when Russia is eye-balling Poland?

[pelasaco]

> Lets say Russia wins, and re-integrates Ukraine.

It won't happen. If you think so then, you are not well informed about this topic. Russia has no manpower to "re-integrate" the whole Ukraine. Ukraine will always exist, but for the next years, maybe not as big as in 2014. Ukraine can still prepare itself to take the lost area back in the future. That's up to Ukraine, not to Europe.

Said that, one possibility, for now, which is part of the negotiations is Russia keep the conquered land, Ukraine joins EU/NATO. Realistically, it would be Ukraine joins EU and US won't block Ukraine applying to NATO.

> Now what does the world look like in 20 years when Russia is eye-balling Poland?

Poland, other than Ukraine, isn't one of the most corrupt countries in the World, and did their home-work. Beside it, other than Ukraine, Poland is NATO.