Because Russia broke them on the first week, yes.
>EU ignored Crimea annexation and continued pumping billions of dollars into Russia (you can see these billions now in form of rockets and bombs in Ukraine)
How is that western/NATO aggression ?
>NATO has been expanding to the East and antagonising paranoid Russia.
NATO is not an entity that looks to engulf everything. Countries see themselves next to Russia, see the bullshit that happens when Russia doesn't honor its agreements with the CSTO members (Amernia and Azerbaijain duking it out make everyone realize how much of a joke the CSTO is), and decide to join NATO. There is no "NATO expansion", there is no agreement of not letting new countries join either. Noone is forced at gunpoint to join NATO.
Russia never applied, they wanted to be special and be asked to apply, they where told that they would have to apply like everyone else.
And then never did.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-s...
This "Russia wanted to join NATO but was denied" argument is the same sort of half-truth revisionism like that "NATO promised to not expand east-ward" thing. What may have been "promised" in private conversations behind closed doors by people who most likely weren't even qualified to give such promises doesn't count much unless there's some sort of written agreement.
There is a formal agreement that Germany doesn't station foreign NATO troops in former East Germany. And guess what? There are no foreign NATO troops stationed in former East Germany to this day.
The Labour peer recalled an early meeting with Putin, who became Russian president in 2000.
“Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’
And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”
As an eastern european, I hate this rhetoric. Some country feels threatened by Russia, joins NATO, and this is presented as NATO bullying Russia. The country that joined, its citizens and their will is not a subject in this discussion. The country is a thing, discussed like you would discuss a nuclear warhead or military base - it's just a tool the powerful use for their means.
How about you consider what the sovereign people want and stop thinking about them as political playthings.
Why don't we compare the number of times Russia has recently invaded its neighbors with the number of times NATO has invaded Russia, shall we?
On the other side, why so limited question? Why not comparing the number of times NATO states invaded some country, and compare with the number of times Russia invaded some country. The relation would probably be somewhere between 10:1 and 100:1.
And btw, why do you call NATO a defensive alliance when it wasn’t involved in a defensive war, only in criminal aggression, if we use international law classification.
Not even close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia
And the list only contains major armed conflicts, omitting violent crackdowns in occupied territories, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9_tragedy and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_(Lithuania)
It's actually independent states which chose to align themselves with NATO instead of Russia.
Interestingly in some countries it was the post-communists who spearheaded the effort.
Tells you all you need to know about what happens to anyone who choses Russia over the west. It's rarely, if ever a good deal.
As a citizen of such a country I disagree.
After over a generation the effects speak for themselves - those who aligned with the west are now democracies(even if at times lead by populists) with healthy economies which were invested into.
Meanwhile those who either aligned with Russia or remained under its influence have very little of the liberty my generation already got used to, rampant corruption and stagnant economies.
Personally I prefer the former, as many citizens of the latter really, but they don't have a say in that due to their circumstances.
As for safety: Ukraine was supposed to remain neutral in exchange for the nuclear stockpile on its territory, but all it got is an unprovoked invasion from Russia, which doesn't respect such agreements and it's enough to neighbor this country to understand this.
Is US handing out passports here in Europe? Are they deporting kids to US, invading countries to make it their own territory? Poisoning politicians that alignn with Russia? Sorry but I haven't seen that. However, we've seen plenty of that coming from Russia.
And you wonder why countries like to join NATO (under agreement, begging them to accept), and not Russia (under force). Strange right?
Maybe one form is better than the other, or do you consider those equal?
I'm not from US by the way, I'm Belgian. You know, home of EU and NATO. Both were formed on collaboration agreements, not enforcement.
But let’s imagine that this is a win-win relationship, say between Estonia and NATO. I understand that Estonia is getting from them, but what USA is getting?
USA is getting a strong partnership next to one of its worst enemies.
Let me pose this question: If US would drop out of NATO, would that mean all NATO countries would drop out, or would the rest of NATO still form an alliance?
Ridiculous comparison
"The Ukrainian military already is bleeding Russia in the Donbass region (and vice versa). Providing more U.S. military equipment and advice could lead Russia to increase its direct involvement in the conflict and the price it pays for it ... Increasing military advice and arms supplies to Ukraine is the most feasible of these options with the largest impact, but any such initiative would have to be calibrated very carefully to avoid a widely expanded conflict."
- 2019 paper from the RAND Corporation titled Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/...
Without Western support, there would be no Ukraine right now.
Hard to find words to express how shitty that would be.
i guess that makes you an expert at master-slave relationships
Not to mention that the markets are not a zero sum game (unlike war). Both sides can get richer in the process.
Why would Ukraine follow Minsk when Russia won't even follow the Budapest Memorandum?.
Russia never follows agreements when it doesn't suit them and only uses them as leverage or as way to freeze conflicts for them to restart in the future.
Budapest Memorandum was broken in 2022, Minsk II was in 2015. And Russia is not a side of Minsk agreements, at least not directly.
the Budapest Memorandum was broken In 2014 when Russia first invaded.
You still haven't given me a reason why Russia gets to unilaterally break there agreements.
However, we’re talking about Minsk II, that looked to me like a good deal for all parties involved, and I think it had the potential to bring peace to these lands first time in 20 years.
> NATO has been expanding to the East and antagonising paranoid Russia.
is simply dumb as hell.
Gee, I wonder why countries on Russia's borders would want to join NATO? It is truly a mystery for the ages.
Then when things are a bit less heated you can show them an alternative point of view.
This is a common bias we all suffer from. But we should be aware of it and try to work against it at times, especially when the consequence is dissolving friendships.
Please...
This war is not about Russia not wanting NATO or EU on its borders. It started in 2014 when Ukraine was about to start moving closer to the rest of Europe, and further from Russia. Russia thinks Ukraine belongs to them, it's nothing but pure imperialism.
The same thing is happening in Belarus by the way. Lukasjenko is propped up by Putin, and in reality they're basically part of Russia now, with Russian military units and even nuclear weapons.
It doesn't matter because he is the biggest liar. It was absolutely not what he and Russia were saying late 2021, before they realized how weak their military was. His and Russias actions show that he can't be trusted for a second.
We don't need to imagine, the US has invaded countries in what it deemed to be its "backyard" for taking choices they don't approve of.