The person you replied to is saying that USA/NATO is untrustworthy, which I think is different from what you are saying.

Oh well anyone who argues USA and NATO more untrustworthy than Russia is not a remotely serious person.

"nobody can trust Putin" - it was admitted both by Merkel, and by another high ranked politician whose name I do not remember at this moment that the goal of Minsk agreement was not to give autonomy to Donbass, which did not accept ukranian nationalism, but to buy time for Ukrainian army to rearm.

So I think you are confusing things.

Merkel was widely misquoted. Here's what she actually said. Note that she referred to Ukraine getting more time in order to mature enough to maybe join NATO, not to be able to fight Russia on its own:

"I thought that the introduction of NATO accession of Ukraine and Georgia, discussed in 2008, was wrong. The countries did not have the necessary prerequisites for this, nor was it fully understood what the consequences of such a decision would have been, both with regard to Russia’s actions against Georgia and Ukraine, as well as NATO and its rules of assistance. And the Minsk Agreement of 2014 was an attempt to give Ukraine time.

Ukraine used this time to become stronger, as you can see today. The Ukraine of 2014/15 is not the Ukraine of today. An illustrative example was the battle for Debaltseve. At the beginning of 2015, Putin could easily have overrun them at that time. And I very much doubt that the NATO countries could have done as much then as they do today to help Ukraine."

Yes. You may dislike Merkel for her strategic decisions regarding fossil gas (I do), but there's no need to misquote her. That reads like a solid take to me.

I mean the simplest reason to misquote her is to muddy the waters and spread disinformation, so “no need” I don’t think quite holds. For some of the commenters here it seems they do have a need to do just that.

Notably, she said this after the 2022 invasion and this narrative doesn't correspond to the fact that her foreign minister Steinmeier was heavily pushing for the Minsk implementation (that's not what you do when you're just trying to buy time).

Furthermore, Minsk agreement was about much more than just Donbas. Implementing it would mean puppetization of the whole Ukraine - read a pretty damning analysis here: https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/05/minsk-conundrum-western...

If someone in Russia could just remove Putin it would save a lot of Ukrainian and Russian lives.

There is the mistaken understanding that this is all just an artefact of Putin. It's not. Most of the Russian elite agree with this war, since they (collectively, including before Putin) have been warning that they will not allow Ukraine to join NATO since the 1990s. This is all well documented.

All the bluster about "denazification and demilitarization" and helping the DNR/LPR aside, this war is entirely about NATO. It would make no difference were Putin replaced, in fact it may be worse since he is (surprisingly) one of the more moderate voices in Russia.

The Russian elite aren’t the folks who were pushing for the war. Many didn’t think it would even happen / have a clue that it would happen.

I think you mistake self preservation in the form of support for a war with the will to start one and continue it.

It’s a kleptocracy, most of them just want money.

People who have plenty of money quickly get bored and seek something stronger: power.

It would be nice of some would… and move out Putin…

I’m no fan of the Russian kleptocracy, but a peaceful one would save a lot of lives. Including a lot of Russian lives.

It doesn’t mean that they’d do anything about it. It’s Putin that’s eliminated anyone who can challenge him, so I assume when he goes so does the war and probably Russia as we know it.

It depends. If Russia collapses, yes. If not, you will just get someone the system accepts, and that's a Hawk, probably a Russian Nationalist Hawk. Putin is a Soviet Empire Hawk.

The Russian public has proven that it can collectively switch to believing whatever needs to be believed in order to continue the war. NATO is simply an excuse to reintegrate Ukraine into the Russian empire that it was part of for very long. When Finland, also on the border with Russia, decided to join NATO, Putin said that there's no problem with that, that it was something for the Finns to decide. Fear of enemies closing in somehow doesn't play there. But Ukraine, where there are millions of ethnic Russians and a similar culture, abundant natural resources, and history that needs to be fixed, is an obvious target if you're restoring an empire.

That was then. Russian leaders have recently been much more aggressive about their language towards Finland.

Both Sergey Lavror and Maria Zakharova, in particular, have changed their discourse to be quite a bit more hostile as time has gone by.

But the point is that Russia does nothing to prevent Finland from joining NATO. The comment I was replying to claimed that the Ukraine war is all about NATO expansion.

It’s not, and hasn’t ever really been, just about Ukraine “joining” NATO, because that was never on the cards. It still isn’t, even despite all of this. There’s a lot more to it.

Also you’re incorrect in your assessment of most of the Russian elite thinking this war was a good idea, that’s just not true, or you’re making the mistake of taking statements by them at face value, which my Ukrainian/Russian extended family will be the first to tell you to be careful of.

"Never" is too strong: George W. Bush pushed hard for Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO at the Bucharest Summit in 2008: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/01/nato.georgia

It also depends on what you mean by elite. The social elite in Moscow or St Petersburg does not run the show. Neither does the military. The security apparatus does.

And it doesn’t appear the security forces know exactly what is going on.

You mean intelligence agencies? Yes, they are powerful, but all of the siloviki have the real power in Russia today.

> this war is entirely about NATO

No, this is almost not at all about NATO. This is about Ukraine drifting from Russian sphere of influence to the western sphere of influence. Russia would not allow Ukraine to join EU either, even if it promised to never enter NATO.

In short, this is about making Ukraine another Belarus.

You're not wrong, because that is true too, but it is NATO that scares Russia.

Given Russia's long history of bloody invasions, I don't think this is something Americans can at all relate to. The American Civil War is small potatoes compared to some of the things that Russians (and other continental countries) have been through.

It makes for a very paranoid country.

> Given Russia's long history of bloody invasions, I don't think this is something Americans can at all relate to.

This is something which most European countries can relate to, but they don't use it (anymore) to justify imperialism.

Of course not, because they are all American vassals. Being under the Pax Americana umbrella myself, I'm quite okay with that.

However, I hope you can understand why a major power like Russia might be suspicious.

> Of course not, because they are all American vassals.

Someone is eating the Russian propaganda here. Projection and all.

> However, I hope you can understand why a major power like Russia might be suspicious.

It can be as suspicious as it wants, within its borders.

That knee-jerk reply exemplifies why there won't be any negotiations any time soon, and I'm just some random person on the Internet.

You need to take a walk, and I'm out too.

That's okay, time for negotiations has long passed.

The amount of effort you people put into not hearing what russians have on multiple occasions in plainest of words claimed to be the goal of the war is honestly mind boggling.

Was it denazification, demilitarization, or de-satanization? I've lost track of the many stated goals. Or was it to help those poor souls in the DPR shoot down more civilian jets? Can't quite remember. Or was it to protect German speakers in the Sudetenland?

And anyway, it's not a war. It's a Special Military Operation. How more plain can you get?

I think it was something to do with pigeons and bioweapons?

/s

Please provide references to your claims that Ukraine wanted to join NATO that date before 2014. Not from Putin and Co claims. Ukraine, until very recently had no plans of joining NATO. Apparently Russia attempted Ukraine invasions starting 20+ years ago. It was always about rebuilding empire and forcing everyone back. And still is.