Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll

Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by dh2022 on Friday March 18, 2022 @05:36PM (#30727868)

Ukraine would be in substantially better straits if NATO told upfront everyone (including Ukraine and Russia) the Ukraine will not be part of NATO. The biggest country in NATO does not want to enforce no-fly zone and does not want to give planes to Ukraine. When will Ukraine wise up that they will never be part of NATO? US is bleeding Russia as much as possible, Ukrainian suffering be damned. (Putin fell head-first into the biggest geo-political trap in the last 30 years. Similar in size with Vietnam and Afganistan traps).

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Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by brimble on Friday March 18, 2022 @05:48PM (#30727969)

> The biggest country in NATO does not want to enforce no-fly zone and does not want to give planes to Ukraine.

You can replace "enforce a no-fly zone" with "declare actual war on Russia". A no-fly zone either involves striking targets in Russia and Belarus, or hands the initiative to Russia if/when an air war starts. It is a very bad idea, to put it mildly.

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Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by dh2022 on Friday March 18, 2022 @06:16PM (#30728242)

I guess my point was not clear. I meant to say this: 1. Ukraine will never join NATO, and NATO knew this 2. NATO encouraged Ukraine to ask for NATO integration knowing (since Dec 2021) Russia will not stand for it, 3. Russia invades Ukraine and US supports Ukraine with weapons, 4. Russia will spend money, lives, international standing, etc...; 5. US will profit (your enemy's loss is your profit); 6. Ukraine will be burned to the ground.

If NATO told Ukraine from the onset they will never join NATO steps 2 and 3 would not have happened. Which means step 6 would not have happened. [edit - a typo in the numbers in events sequence. Sorry about that]

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Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by ceejayoz on Friday March 18, 2022 @06:23PM (#30728312)

> If NATO told Ukraine from the onset they will never join NATO steps 2 and 3 would not have happened.

Look, if I murder my neighbor because they’re friends with the other neighbor I hate, I’m the bad guy.

Russia does not get to tell other countries they aren’t permitted to ally with each other.

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Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by tchalla on Friday March 18, 2022 @06:32PM (#30728422)

> Russia does not get to tell other countries they aren’t permitted to ally with each other.

Logically, no - they don’t. In the real world, it does not work that way. Hence, the US has the Monroe Doctrine. It’s also the reason why US has invaded Latin American countries and many other ones. “Might is right” is an unfair unfortunate realty in international military situations.

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Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by polski-g on Friday March 18, 2022 @07:07PM (#30728770)

Americans have superpower bias. They think that every country can ally and antagonize any other country they want. When you're a buffer state, you don't have that privilege. If Mexico started talking about a military alliance with Russia, they would have some American freedom missiles delivered very shortly. Ukraine is Russia's Mexico.

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Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by ncann on Friday March 18, 2022 @07:25PM (#30728950)

> since Dec 2021

It goes back way earlier than that. Russia has repeatedly expressed in no uncertain terms that Ukraine is the single one red line that they will never accept joining NATO. A very insightful article on FP on the topic:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-cri...

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Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by emptysongglass on Saturday March 19, 2022 @01:55AM (#30731493)

It's totally nonsensical and does not map to Putin's writings on the essential unity of Ukraine and Russia or myriad other geographic, demographic, and resource-based practicalities of why Putin wants this war.

Please see my earlier comments for why this but-NATO! argument is the opium toked by demagogues and their acolytes.

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Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by infamia on Friday March 18, 2022 @09:29PM (#30729968)

The entire Ukraine joining NATO thing is such Russian garbage. Ukraine would not have been allowed NATO membership precisely because they have a "unresolved external territorial disputes", which is exactly why Putin invaded both Georgia and Ukraine (e.g. Crimea) in the first place. Putin wants to make another Belarus plain and simple.

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Re:Mariupol's devastation: AP journalists document war's toll by stjohnswarts on Friday March 18, 2022 @06:31PM (#30728401)

Putin was going to invade in either case. He didn't invade because Ukraine was courting NATO, he invaded because things were looking up for Ukraine and Russia has been languishing for a couple decades now and he didn't want an up and coming democracy beside him, he wanted a Soviet style puppet state than he could dominate. It also gives him an excuse to push foreign countries out of Russia so he can tighten his fist around the throats of Russians even tighter and blame it on the West

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