We need to not normalize the idea of a no fly zone, no matter how gut wrenching watching this war gets.
Putin just moves the line wherever he wants and you will keep dancing around it. This naive thinking really needs to die already.
Putin has made it clear that he will also launch a nuclear attack in case of an "existential war", which means a war where Russia itself is being attacked with the purpose of conquering or destroying it.
A no-fly zone is not that. There is no reason for Russia to escalate to nuclear, except for Putin's vengeful ego. Because everybody knows that if Russia goes nuclear, it would be the end of Russia. Everybody in the nuclear chain of command knows this. Even if Putin is actually insane enough to order a nuclear attack (he might be, I don't know), anyone of any competence in the military will ignore those orders, because it would end their country and kill their family. (Although you could ask whether there is anyone of competence left in the Russian military; Putin seems to replace competents with loyalists, and the incompetent execution of the attack on Kiev doesn't inspire much confidence here.)
And if Putin's vengeful ego will make him order a nuclear attack, then losing this war will probably do that anyway, whether or not NATO or EU had anything to do with it. And there is no way Putin can win this war. Ukrainians have made clear that they will continue to fight, no matter what. If Kiev falls, they will continue to fight. Any city that Russia takes, will be Ukrainian again the moment they leave. For Ukrainians, there is no surrender possible to a man who wants to enslave them. If this war continues, it can only become a massacre. Putin would have to kill every single Ukrainian, and I'm starting to believe that he would. It would be another holocaust.
I think a no-fly zone is the only option.
Not directly, no - but by induction, probably.
NATO fighter jets attacking Russian aircraft & SAM sites would likely be used by Russia to justify strikes against the airfields those NATO planes operate from. So then you have Russia attacking airfields in NATO countries. Already that's terrifying because you have missiles launched by Russia flying at, say, Germany - and you don't know until they hit if they're nuclear, chemical, conventional, or what. Next step you probably have NATO counterstrikes on Russian land. That puts you right on the edge of nuclear scenarios very fast. No world leaders should even remotely be considering going there.
Neither the US nor Russia accept this premise.
Are you sure about that, to the point of risking the continuity of the species and all of our modern civilizations upon that? If one can claim that the Jewish population in Ukraine is actually Nazis and have many of their citizens believe it even as the economy is collapsing, i doubt that justifying even greater crimes against humanity or other horrible actions is out of the question.
It breaks my heart to see that bullies like Putin are allowed to largely get away with what's going on (apart from support for Ukraine by the international community, though that's essentially funding a proxy war and civilians and the culture at large will still suffer immensely), but you also have to understand the reluctance of other countries to escalate.
And to prevent anyone dismissing the above arguments due to my biases towards the western perspective, i've seen people on /r/russia attempt to justify their military's actions by recalling past actions of western regimes. Just to be clear, i condemn all actions like this, regardless by whom they're perpetuated: two wrongs don't make a right. Humanity should learn to talk, though i fear that there are irreconcilable differences as well.
And I understand that western countries are reluctant to impose a no-fly zone out of fear that Putin has gone insane and might resort to nuclear escalation, but I think the risk of him resorting to nuclear escalation already exists if he can't have his way with Ukraine. And there are a lot of Russians who strongly disagree with this war and would probably support a no-fly zone.
I fully admit that if Putin has indeed gone nuts and isn't merely playing games, then we have to trust the Russian military in control of the missiles to do the right thing, but I think that trust is also warranted; many Russian soldiers already don't want to fight, and I'm sure the more competent commanders are well aware that a nuclear attack would be suicide.
No, the fear is that Putin is basically sane and operating under something like normal great power expectations despite his crimes of aggression, and thus will not attack NATO countries for fear or nuclear retaliation, but will escalate against NATO countries if they intervene directly against him, potentially and quickly leading to nuclear war.
If they thought Putin was insane, the marginal risk between aiding Ukraine and intervening directly would be less, not more.
He is claiming that the Neo-Nazi units of the Ukrainian military operating in the south of the country, who harbor Nazi tattoos and whose flags represent the Black Sun and the rune used as the symbol of the "Das Reich" SS division, are probably Nazis. The Australian terrorist Brenton Tarrant mentioned, in his manifesto, that he had visited those guys.
Last year a UN resolution was motioned to condemn Nazism and Neo-Nazism. Only two countries voted against: the United States and Ukraine.
This doesn't justify any war of aggression, of course, but you cannot pretend that there is no Nazi problem in Ukraine either.
Of course he is not claiming that the Jews in the government in Kiev are Nazis, because that would be absurd, but it's pretty clear that they are tolerating Nazis in the military for very cynical reasons (they're actually very effective fighters and are employed to fight the separatists in the Donbass region).
We absolutely need to keep pushing for a no-fly zone and enforce it. This is now the world's war, and has reached far beyond the politics internal to Russia and Ukraine.
In fact, we went direct fairly regularly, but only in circumstances where we (or they, or, in a few cases both) maintained superficial (not always really plausible, as both sides would often protect the fiction to avoid escalation) deniability.
That is why, for instance, radio intercepts of North Korean pilots in the Korean War showed they tended to switch from Korean to Russian a lot under stress.
Why? Nuclear disaster is bad, but how would it ensure that a country can _never_ join NATO or the EU?
Ukraine already had the Chernobyl disaster on their soil, and I don't see that one as keeping them out of either organisation _forever_.
> Why? Nuclear disaster is bad, but how would it ensure that a country can _never_ join NATO or the EU?
> Ukraine already had the Chernobyl disaster on their soil, and I don't see that one as keeping them out of either organisation _forever_.
And didn't the EU pay a lot of money to help them build a new containment building for it?
It's a bizarre leap to say a nuclear disaster would disqualify a country from joining NATO or the EU.
Doesn't matter too much for the point I made in any case:
If a nuclear disaster were to happen in Ukraine now, NATO and EU would also not blame it on Ukraine.
2:1
Both USA and USSR nuked themselves a whole lot more when testing nuclear weapons. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests
And, of course, Russia could do much blowing up with conventional weapons, too.
However: for a nuclear power like Russia, blowing up nuclear reactors only makes sense if they can make it look like an accident.
Otherwise: just use your nukes.
He has a difficult time winning the war already, he’d never be able to win if he pulls in more countries.
Russia is desperate to deter EU/USA from involving itself more in the war, and the only way it can do that is by treating to escalate to nuclear war.
But that threat is only effective if people actually think that you will do it, so they must play this so that they seem crazy enough to start a nuclear war.
It's a bit like someone blackmailing you for money for something illegal you did together, only way to get you to pay is to show that they are really willing to expose your secrets, even if they might be exposed also. And once you believe them and start paying they will continue to demand money from you.
As always, apply the Falsifiability principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
> the Kremlin said that Mr. Putin had told his French counterparty
> that his main goal was “the demilitarization and neutral status of Ukraine.”
> Those goals, the Kremlin said, “will be achieved no matter what.”
The only English source I could find quickly was this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/world/europe/putin-macron...
Edit: by your terminology I would consider Ukrainians to be crazy. This a good thing and the reason why I’m rooting for them. They’re the underdog. The rational thing for them to do was to capitulate as soon as the invasions started. It takes a “crazy” level of conviction to the do the irrational thing here.
If you think they might not, because ethics and morals, then the deterrent's value is discounted by your percentage of doubt.
Putin doesn't have to occupy the country to "win", all he has to do is set them back to the dark ages and make everyone (who can) flee.
He can't be allowed to get away with this. Ukraine needs a "no fly zone" ASAP