Ukraine Always Get What You Want

Wagner Group is in Belarus because Putin didn’t want it causing trouble at home. It’s not going to work out for him.

 

The New York Times’ Roger Cohen spent a month inside Russia to report out this story, and it’s absolutely a must-read.

Putin’s Forever War

 

There are reasons I keep holding off on canceling my subscription to the online version of the NYT. That article is among them.

It is a great, if depressing, read. Thanks for posting it.

And, I've said it before, but, yeah, something really does need to be done about Putin. Preferably before March of 2024.

 

That story shows that some Russian women show their husbands the light.

Some Russian women show their husbands darkness, however. We have one of those in our midst.

 

She was born in the same city as Zelenskiy, voted for Ukrainian independence, has a brother in the Ukrainian army and other family still there. Has more skin in the game than anyone here. So if she has an opinion, I'll politely hear her out, then I'll tell her some things she doesn't want to hear, either (like you do with your Trumpist family members). Fucking sue me.

 

You handled that far more rationally than I would have.

 

I ask this out of a sense of curiosity. Right up to the invasion you I think it is fair to say that you were very pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian, I remember you specifically said the ethnic Russians who voted for Ukrainian independence were lied to.

Why did you feel this way?

 

I said my wife said, "We were lied to." I really have no knowledge how other ethnic Russians who voted for independence feel about their vote. And as many times as my wife has tried to explain it, I still can't grasp exactly what an "ethnic Russian" is. During the Cold War when we talked about "the Russians" we were talking about everyone in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, too.

And I'm not anti-Ukrainian. I'm anti-U.S. intervention in Ukraine. I can't stress how big a difference that is, other than to imagine for a moment a Russia-backed Mexico and how we would react to that. Ukraine became independent in 1991. For more than two decades there was, at worst, an "understanding" or "mutual cooperation" between Russia and Ukraine that seemed to be working fine. I spent two weeks in Ukraine in 2008. Not a negative word was spoken about the country. On my last day we spent all day walking the streets of Kiev and talked about how it would be a pretty nice place to live. Everything changed when the U.S. seized the moment when there was unrest in 2013 and prodded a coup.

Buried in that article is someone quoted as saying, "Just like in 1945, we will not tolerate an enemy on our border." A neutral Ukraine is not an enemy. A U.S.-backed Ukraine is. That's unfortunately how they see it. Still, I've been against the war from the start and have learned to avoid even bringing it up in the house. There's just no point.

Here's my brother-in-law, a former Soviet sailor who quit his job as a taxi driver to join the Ukrainian army in 2015. Last time I wrote to him, he replied very simply, "Still alive, fighting the invaders."

 

I respect everything you have written here and appreciate you taking the question seriously.

That said

You dismiss US intervention as if Russia has a reason to invade and suggest we would be mad too if Russia supported Mexico. You leave out if the Americans rolled the clock back to 1846 and tried another invasion to take over more Mexican territory. That would be after we illegally annex Baja California to reunite the two Californians because there was a bunch of expats living there.

You also leave out Russia is more or less doing this because Putin thought he could get away with it.

But again I appreciate the nuance you give here. Much respect to your BIL and hope he and everyone your family knows and loves there are safe and continue to be.

 

Wasn't my intention. Was only pointing out that Ukraine was a "partner" until the U.S. intervened and is now an "enemy." As I've been against the invasion, I never considered it a legitimate reason for war. Legitimate reason for anger and concern, yes. But not for war.

I left out a lot of things that I felt would belabor the obvious, including this. Countries don't typically go into other countries unless they think they can get away with it.

And with that I will yield this thread back to everyone else to discuss the news of the day. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

 

Sorry I confused the quote and attributed it to your wife rather than to you.

I lived in Moscow about 15 years ago, I never figured out the difference between an ethnic Ukrainian and Russian while I was there. But the ethnic Russians in Moscow thought it was an extremely important thing. I decided the best way to think about Russians were as a race, not a nationality.

The ethnic Russians would go on and on about the mistreatment of ethnic Russians in the countries that gained independence. Listening to them they made it sound like there were concentration camps in Latvia. But the ethnic Russians were most concerned about Ukraine for two reasons. One was that the historic ties to Ukraine which had been part of the Soviet Union for a very long time. The second was that Ukraine had about 20 million ethnic Russians living there. Muscovites were far more likely to have relatives in that country than the Baltics. The Muscovites I talked to were also embarrassed about the fact that Russia was not considered a superpower but rather a middle income state.

I also agree with Gorbachev that the United States acted with a sense of "triumphalism" that was unwise after the Soviet Union collapsed. But the history of Europe is largely that of wars by leaders trying to expand their borders such as Napoleon, Hitler and the Kaiser. Lot's of empires have contracted notably the French, the Hungarians, the Ottomans, the Germans and many others.
But for the threat that a United States dominated Ukraine poses to the sovereignty of Russia four other NATO countries border Russia and the alliance has shown no interest in invading Russia.

I think the Russians need to stop trying to recreate the old Soviet Union and work on things like improving the standard of living of their citizens (the Russian middle class does not live well). I also think that any attempt to redraw the boundaries of Europe will lead to further wars. I believe it would be dumb of the United States to allow Russia to conquer the Ukraine because we don't buy artillery shells.

 

I've been an asshole a lot on this board and stir shit up more often than I am willing to admit to myself so thank you so much for this reply. I think I understand much better where you are coming from. We have points where we can reasonably disagree (mostly because I don't have your Russian perspective and experience) but thank you for responding seriously and not calling me an asshole (which because it's me, I would understand).