[lfmunoz4]

Do you remember what happened when Russia tried to install missiles in Cuba? The USA put its foot down and was willing to have a nuclear war. Same thing is happening in Russia, making Ukraine part of NATO is just too close. Why is it so hard for people to understand this?

[dragonwriter]

> making Ukraine part of NATO is just too close.

Ukraine (after abandoning efforts after the MAP rejection -- done at Russia's insistence -- in 2008) only started looking at NATO membership again after Russia invaded, so it is ludicrously disconnected from reality (but exactly representative of Russian propaganda!) to try to use that to justify the invasion.

[wtcactus]

Do you remember that started because Russia already invaded part of Ukraine in 2014?

Do you remember Russia’s promises when Ukraine voluntarily ceded their nuclear arsenal to Russia?

[lfmunoz4]

Not sure what the point you are making is? Should we just keep going back in history and try to cherry pick events to blame and justify current conflicts? That can go on indefinitely and is why we keep having wars.

[dragonwriter]

The current war started with the 2014 invasion by Russia.

Claiming that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is caused and justified by a thing which happened after and in response to that invasion is arguing for retrocausality. It is not "going back in history and cherry picking events" to point out when and how the current war started in a discussion of the causes of the current war, especially when an event that happened after and in response to the start of the current war is argued to justify the aggressor in the current war.

[skinnymuch]

It started because of the western coup in Ukraine. Reminds me of people who say Oct 7 started the “war” in Palestine.

[dlahoda]

what do you mean by western coup?

so you would preffer russian troops killing political opponents and protesters in ua, like they did since 1992 in belarus till these day to avoid """coup"""?

or you prefer russian troops did 10x more massacre and hide it, instead they did 10x less in bucha and did not have time to hide?

btw just talk with pl and cz old people how their western coup was going.

seems like people prefer western coup to russian massacress and mass graves...

[skinnymuch]

The west does things even worse than that to non white people and the west does near nothing (usually perpetrating this behavior) to avoid coups the way you’re saying.

There was a coup orchestrated by the west in Ukraine in 2014. Followed by an escalation of a complicated situation that is not clear cut like people in the west like to make things seem. After the coup, there was suppression of Russian things by the western backed and planted regime.

Of course things may have eventually escalated if Ukraine and the west are doing that and the Russian separatists in the east are provoking in DPR and LDR.

I am sympathetic to Kissinger, Dugin, and Mearsheimer views on geopolitics if you must know.

[wtcactus]

> Should we just keep going back in history and try to cherry pick events to blame and justify current conflicts

But, it is you that did just that. You picked up an event from the 1960's in a totally different continent, to justify Russian continued agressions against Ukraine.

I answered by actually pointing out an event from 10 years ago that's directly related to this war.

[skinnymuch]

Russia responded to a western coup on one of the 3 East Slavic nations (Russia Ukraine Belarus).

[wtcactus]

Oh. That's probably because we don't share the same definition of what is a "coup".

For me, it's clear that a "coup" is not when the democratic will of the people outs a puppet that was put in place by Moscow. While you have the opposite opinion.

[skinnymuch]

I don’t expect westerners to accept reality or principles.

[GJim]

Except NATO is a defence organisation.

Ask yourself why countries bordering Russia want to join.

[codedokode]

Well missiles on Cuba might also be intended for defense. As USSR leader wrote in a letter to US president, "you know that one cannot invade the country with missiles" or something along these lines.

[mopsi]

Nobody installed any missiles in Ukraine. As to alliances, Cuba remained an ally of the USSR until its very end in 1991.

[jsnider3]

Making Ukraine part of NATO is just something Putin made up, not an actual thing.

[CapricornNoble]

I recommend reading some of the diplomatic cables on Wikileaks https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW3127_a.html <--this one from 2008 has Russian diplomats warning about NATO expansion and Ukraine

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08KYIV1144_a.html <-- this one is about Ukrainian spending on a pro-NATO information campaign

The Ukrainian president who was anti-NATO is the one that the Euromaidan deposed. https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-scraps-nato-accession-plans/a-...

Here's France24's take in 2014 when Ukraine voted to abandon "non-aligned" status: https://www.france24.com/en/20141223-ukraine-parliament-vote... Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its support for the separatist insurgency appear partly rooted in fears that the Western military alliance could expand its presence on the Russian border.

Then in 2019 we have this: Ukraine President Signs Constitutional Amendment On NATO, EU Membership (Radio Free Europe, 2019) https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-president-signs-constitution...

Followed up by Zelensky doubling down on NATO later that same year: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-president-promises-nato-refe...

And then Trump sending additional lethal aid to Ukraine at the end of the year: https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/12/04/trump-to-see...

My personal opinion is that these events in 2019 were the last straw for Putin. He probably made the decision to invade early in 2020....but had to pause those plans while the whole world grappled with COVID. It then took them into mid-2021 to get the ball rolling on staging their forces for invasion, and then they were delayed again due to Xi Jinping telling Putin to not fuck up his Beijing Olympics or he wouldn't get tacit support from the PRC. All of which meant that the early-2022 invasion was likely caused by NATO-related issues that were looking increasingly concerning 3 years earlier.

[codedokode]

To add to your collection of links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2021_Russian_ultimatu...

[layer8]

How is that related to the comment you’re replying to?