You are talking about mobster who understands only strength and rule of stronger, any concept of morality, fairness, rule of law etc. is meaningless. At this point, he considers large parts or whole Europe should be under his dictatorship, and so does parts of middle east. Well we Europeans say NO (and much more). Waving nuclear threat won't change our stance since what goes around comes around, if he goes in others go in and all was for much less than nothing. Fighting for greater Russia will lose any meaning since there won't be any to talk about anymore.
Russia has so much more to lose, it hasn't even begun losing properly.
The west did exactly what you said the last two times Russia took a bite out of Ukraine, and now we're in this mess, with millions involved and nuclear war on the table. I fear to think where we'd be with another round or two of passing the buck.
Western Europe already did that in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea.
How did that danegeld went?
Every time you give in to Russian threats and aggression, you get more Russian threats and aggression.
The West should tell Russia, firmly and directly, that any use of nukes by Russia will result in the same on Russia, and advise the Russian armed forces not to obey any order that would amount to national suicide.
Beyond the reality of instant and powerful retalation, dropping nuclear weapons on Berlin or Kyiv or Warsaw is a tad suicidal from that POV alone.
And even the use of a small scale "tactical" nuke inside Ukrainian territory would essentially force NATO into committing its own forces inside Ukraine. It would be too far beyond the pale.
I don't think Putin will take this gamble. The whole world would lose, but Russia would lose even more.
I totally think Putin is insane enough by now to order a tactical nuclear strike. I also think, for now, the Russian military will act by then and "remove" him from power. Or not, because who knows how those things play out in real life.
Hence Lavrov constantly crowing about the hypocrisy of "the west." It's not that they think what the US empire has done is immoral. It's that they (and by they I don't mean the Russian people, but instead a select cadre at the top) want the same thing for themselves.
The irony is there was no singular unified west until Russia invaded Ukraine. Out of that conflict, they have inadvertently forged a much more united western opposition to them.
I hated the whole concept of NATO until Russia invaded Ukraine.
So yes, I agree, think Putin overplayed his hand in a clumsy way. But he may have had no other choice.
The parallels to WWI are strong.
Yes. What Lavrov doesn't understand is that the West isn't an empire, it's a series of states with similar cultures and political and economic systems, that voluntarily choose to work together. But Russia doesn't seem to realise that there are other ways of getting people to do what you want than brutality and threats.
> What Lavrov doesn't understand is that the West isn't an empire series of states with similar cultures and political and economic systems, that voluntarily choose to work together. But Russia doesn't seem to realise that there are other ways of getting people to do what you want than brutality and threats. > brutality and threats
Brutality and threats is what U.S. sanctions and U.S. national security strategy are.
True but irrelevant -- my whole point was the USA (alongside most nations) has other tools to getting what it wants.
Russia is a country whose only tool is a hammer, and all problems look to it like nails.