Ukraine was already invaded and is at war with Russia over Donbas since 2014.
Russia does not deny their current military buildup on Ukraine border with Belarus and Russia.
But as I said, they don't even deny buildup.
They just say that they do not want to invade and that it is their right to gather army all around Ukraine. None of our business.
Instead they make demands with regard to security of countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and of course Ukraine.
It was not obvious recently to German navy chief, it is not obvious to Ukrainian government and to plenty of other experts. All the evidence about "imminent attack" is fed to media by US government without sufficient proofs. Whatever are your sources, try to find more information.
Ukrainian government is not denying Russia buildup on their borders. They just say that Russia does not have enough troops for a full scale invasion. So, Russia is preparing, but is not yet ready for a full-scale invasion.
But USA is indeed going too far in rhetoric if Ukraine is toning them down.
Personally, I think there is 55% chance Russia is bluffing and intimidates Ukraine to dissuade them from thinking about taking back Donbas and Crimea. 45% chance that by end of March there will be land corridor from Russia to Crimea.
Indeed he did not. However he said that such invasion to annex more of Ukrainian territory does not make sense. In order to run a very expensive and widely unpopular military operation you do need a good motive, and this means that whatever is the purpose of the military buildup, invasion is not the goal.
Russian military did not invade undisputed territories since War in Afghanistan and they now prefer hybrid wars or limited peacekeeping operations, rather than full scale invasions. They may provide some support to Donbas, but there is actually no point even investing in that. Minsk agreements are quite favorable to Russia, so it brings more value to persuade Germany and France that Ukraine needs more pressure to implement them. No, the real target of this buildup is NATO, playing Biden into signing new security treaties.
We will see.
Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO due to disputed territories anyway.
As a Pole, after full blown invasion on Ukraine, I would support increase in military spending beyond current goal of 2.5%.
I also think that Sweden and Finland would join NATO relatively soon after invasion. After 2014 annexation of Crimea support for NATO grew there some 20-30%. Sweden is rattled enough to deploy symbolic military presence to Gotland. Joining NATO is part of political discussion in Finland, but they are on the edge.
Russia would only lose on war with Ukraine.
As for the expansion of NATO, any change in the military configuration of it is an unnecessary and significant escalation. Russia is not threatening neither Finland, nor Sweden, not even close, but we will get at least an arms race in Baltic region if they join. Russian military strategy is that of active defense, they build up the power to protect their own territory. They do not have capabilities to attack and occupy Poland or Finland for a long time, mainly for logistical reasons (their army will run out of fuel quickly and won’t be able to resupply fast enough). The worst part of the expansion is not that there’s a hypothetical risk of a conflict but that it strengthens Putin. He has built his rule on the idea of Fortress Russia surrounded by enemies. Any hostile moves by the West help him to build this case and to prove that pro-Western opposition is wrong. But if instead we could bind Russia in the series of multilateral deals with its neighbors, including defense cooperation, we could on one side defeat the Russian hawks and on the other side create too big pie to lose for Russian elites. America has Monroe doctrine: we should try to remove the need for Russia to have one. Situation in Ukraine made this really hard to achieve, but not impossible.
The thing though is it does make Putin look weak if he has to move 100k troops to threaten Biden to the negotiation table.
PS: "Proof" is both singular and plural. "Proofs" isn't a word.
I don't feel like one can participate in this discussion in good faith because any "evidence" of "imminent attack" can be brushed off... 100k troops and a ton of military gear on the border? Just chilling out and sightseeing, my friend, nothing to see here!
However, I do contest the claim that all "evidence" is fed by the US government. There are other sources if you care to dig in.
How about Ministry of Defence of Ukraine? They've been predicting action for January-February since months ago, and there's certainly evidence from Ukraine that Russia is up to something.
> On 21 November, the head of the HUR MOU, Kyrylo Budanov, reported that Russia had concentrated more than 92,000 troops and deployed several Iskander short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) systems near the Russo-Ukrainian border. Budanov accused Russia of conspiring protests against vaccination against COVID-19 in Kyiv and other protest rallies in Ukraine to destabilize the country in preparations for a large-scale military invasion. According to Budanov, active Russian military actions should be expected between late-January and early-February 2022.
> On 3 December, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksii Reznikov, spoke of the possibility of a "large-scale escalation" by Russia during the end of January 2022, during a session at the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's national parliament).
> Russia began a slow evacuation of its embassy staff at Kyiv beginning from January 2022. The motives of the evacuation remain unknown and were subjected to multiple speculations. By mid-January, an intelligence assessment produced by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence estimated that Russia were in its final stages of completing a military buildup at the Russo-Ukrainian border, amassing 127,000 troops at the region.
I'm not going to post the links because anyone who is not dishonest and not intellectually lazy can find them in two minutes of searching.
Umm, this is exactly what I meant when I said it's impossible to discuss this in good faith. Any evidence can be immediately brushed off. "Ha, Ministry of Defence of Ukraine failed to predict the exact date when something would happen, therefore everything they said is false!" Completely disregarding everything that has been happening near Ukrainian border.
Sorry, I'm not going to continue this discussion with you.
This is also why Ukraine will not join NATO until they resolve their business with Russia.
USA will proxy war with Russia all over the world, but always falls short of direct conflict. It's too likely to turn nasty, and trigger MAD.
I think it's an important distinction that the US isn't gearing up for war with Russia (US-Russia), but rather readying themselves for a Ukraine-Russia escalation, and whatever ways in which that might spill over. Arguably they are already at war. The concern is not just another territory grab, but outright attack on Ukrainian sovereignty.
I don't know enough about world politics to have a say in to what degree the US is willing to come to Ukraine's defense. I do know that US doctrine since the Cold War is to not directly square off with the bear, not discounting giving the bear death stares from across the bar.
You should read not only what the state department tries to claim, but also what the russian official figures are saying (google translate?). Objectively, you are advancing troops to Russian border, and not Russia advancing its troops to yours. And you have the history of invading other nations, not Russia (though you would claim Russia invaded Ukraine, remember that Ukraine was part of Russia long before the american state came into being, that no one ever considered Lugansk and Donetsk "ukrainian cities", and that the current ukranian neonazi government, supported by US in its role of a battering ram against Russia, tries to ban the Russian language in Ukraine, and glorifies WWII collaborationists).
So Russia didn't invade Afghanistan, USSR did. Okay I guess.
>remember that Ukraine was part of Russia
So now Russia is the same as USSR? But didn't invade other countries?
What? Doublespeak much?
>the current ukranian neonazi government
Okay I now regret reading your comment. It's just swallowing and regurgitating Russian state propaganda.
Scenario 1) US disseminates bad intelligence and invades a sovereign country. Iraq War.
Scenario 2) US disseminates bad intelligence and arms / militarily supports a sovereign country which is being invaded. Ukraine.
Nobody is remotely considering a scenario where the US is saying "Russia might invade Ukraine, so we're going to invade Russia."
A defensive war is by definition the fault of the aggressor. Because they are literally on land that is yours.
They are on their own against Putin's Russia.
"We didn't plan to do this, we stated this so many times in all media, but what we said they are going to do is so bad, that we had to take actions... Totally not our fault, everyone can see that..."
It would be very easy for the Chinese authorities to allow critical media in every province just like it would be easy for Russia to have OSCE (or equivalent) inspection of “excercises” near the Ukrainian border.
Questioning sources and rumors is a good thing - but in cases when the sources are scarce because they are denied, one should assume the worst from the party refusing oversight. This is a plausible rumor.
No one wants to deal with Russia, have anything to do with Russia, or hear of it at all. No one. They're a nation of misery and nothingness. Would you leave your apartment, right now, go to the slums and start shit with the people over there? The thought that the US is looking for excuses to mess with Russia is insane.
And spending any time on Russia is a wasted time and resources which could have been spent towards more productive things. But if you let Russia run around and conquering this and that will force your hand eventually, at which point the time and resources you have to spent to deal with them would have grown massively.
Describes South Los Angeles or San Francisco SoMa perfectly.
Come on, unilateral military action against Russia? You can't be serious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings#Rus...
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1110912 The UN reports that Russian troop buildup is happening at the border
The area has already had Russian agression via Crimea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_Crimea
Are people suggesting that no one should respond militarily to an allies plea for help to respond to military aggression?
Having just finishing the war in the middle east, I'm sure the military complex would have a vested interest in joining / starting another conflict.
What about using a conflict to deflect attention away from a market breakdown?
What about using a conflict to drive a post-COVID recovery?
I'm not saying it definitely has to be one of these reasons, but I can think of many off the top of my head. Why are you so certain that USA or NATO nations would have no reason to start a conflict?
First you say "this is going to happen" and then courageously prevent it by something you needed to do but had no excuse before.
Ukraine is not member of NATO and not an ally of NATO states, just a rather unreliable partner in security cooperation, a corrupt democracy with stagnating reforms that does not want to commit to the diplomatic agreements negotiated with the help of the West. There is no reason for NATO to participate in any military conflict there.
> after eight years of facing down one another across about 200 meters of no-man’s land at the line of demarcation, the situation between Ukrainian armed forces and Donbas forces is very tense and volatile, so that it would be very easy for a provocation staged by British or American special forces, who are known to be in the area, to touch off a major conflagration.
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/02/04/look-at-the-map-where...
How do we know for sure the real title shouldn't be: "US to stage false flag information campaign claiming 'russia is about to use crisis actors to stage false flag operation and start war in days', followed by false flag operations in Ukraine, in order to justify upcoming unilateral action against Russia?"
Like, I've seen soo many unprovoked articles in the last few days about how the US is "actively" gearing for war over something Russia "may" do, it's all a bit reminiscent of the "War on Iraq/Terror/WMD" stuff to me, and we all know how that ended up.
Furthermore, what I'm more worried when hearing press releases like that is that it's exactly the kind of talk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean, it's chicken and egg situation, isn't it? If got whiff that someone was planning an armed raid to my house on the pretext of finding guns, first thing I'd do would be to arm myself to fend off the raiders. If I heard that someone was accusing me of "planning to throw eggs at the school windows", my first thought would be that someone is planning to do this on my behalf already in order to frame me, and maybe I should go near the school with some eggs and wait for the offenders.
At what point do we take such speculative projections justifying real military actions at face value without questioning the intelligence and motives involved?