that agressive bully was much further west 30+ years ago and western europe managed fine then

Not very aggressive in practice at that time. And the eastern Europe did not manage very well, which western Europe paid for for quite a long time.

Most of that aggression was targeted at Eastern Europe, such as putting down uprisings in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

Which is, go figure, why Poland, the Baltics, the Czechs, etc. are so eager to support Ukraine...

it is not that clear cut. neither hungarians nor the czechs are very eager to support ukraine. same as eastern germans

https://apnews.com/article/czech-ukraine-russia-government-p...

It is very clear cut. All Eastern European countries support Ukraine. In Czechia (and I believe in Slovakia) there are some groups convinced that if their countries stop support Ukraine, somehow miraculously peace will manifest. Moreover, millions of Ukrainians fled the war - it's a miracle there weren't any mass backlashes or provocations yet given the number of people that relocated and lives on foreign soil. But Ukraine has enormous support in the whole East Europe because these folks know they're next in line - they can even hear such threats from Russian TV and some politicians.

okay if you say so

> that agressive bully was much further west 30+ years ago

And Putin wants all of that back.

> western europe managed fine then

But eastern Europe didn't manage fine, and they're the ones now pushing western Europe into putting more effort into stopping Putin.

Western Europe mostly just wants to trade with Putin. This is most visible in Germany of course (technically central Europe, but the old east-west divide is suddenly relevant again), but also France. They've been slow to accept that Putin is not really a trade partner but an aggressor. They ignored it when Putin destroyed Chechnya. They ignored it when he took chunks out of Georgie. They ignored it when Putin took Crimea. Only when he tried to take Donbass did they finally start to see there might be a problem. Meanwhile Poland and the Baltics have been pointing out that Putin is a threat for two decades now. They were undeniably right to join NATO.

i think the us + uk + poland + baltics want to drag the rest of europe into war with russia

Only Putin wants this war. US, UK, Poland, the Baltics and many other countries want to defend Europe against Russia. Nobody outside Russia would complain if Putin suddenly quit his war and withdrew from Ukraine.

us certainly profited nicely from this conflict. i also doubt anyone would complain if us suddenly stopped invading and bombing

How? So far, it's just costing everybody, including the US, a lot of money. What profit is there for the US in having Russia destroy entire Ukrainian cities?

If Putin thought the US profited too much from this while his own country suffered, maybe he'd stop his war. But his narrative is that the US and the entire West is suffering just as much as Russia and they'll soon give up, so victory is within sight. It's not of course; it's just bullshit to let him prolong his war for just a bit longer.

its so funny when nato fanboys cant see past their own propaganda. here you go

the us arms industry profits

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-21/us-arms-industry-mili...

the us gas industry profits

https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-europe-uk...

all i did is google "us profits from war in ukraine"

also by "us profits" i dont mean the us people profit. the war is costing the us people a lot

in the end if ukraine wins they will be so indebted to us and nato that their independence wont be worth the paper its written on. if they lose, well its definitely gonna be shit for them. talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place, and all for nothing. whats absolute worst for them is if they win on the battle field and putin decides to wipe them off the face of the earth out of spite. somehow the us is managing to convince ukraine that this isnt a possobilty, just like they convinced them that they will join the eu and nato. apparently putin is a very predictable monster with nuclear morals

i mean honnestly, this is a question for you, what do you see as a realistic outcome for ukraine?

It's not the US convincing Ukraine, it's Ukraine convincing the US. I don't know if you've noticed, but Zelensky is constantly asking, begging, every country to support Ukraine.

You're trying to spin this as something the US wants, but it's not. It's something Putin wanted. Zelensky and the people of Ukraine are (obviously) far more determined to defend their country than anyone else. And many European countries are mostly supporting Ukraine because their own citizens are demanding that they do so.

There's tons of popular support for Ukraine, because most people recognise the terrible injustice of the Russian invasion and the atrocities committed by Russia.

How things will look after the war is impossible to predict, but US support has helped western Europe quite a lot after WW2. And even the defeated enemies of that war, Germany and Japan, are doing extremely well because of the way they've been rebuilt after the war. In the long run, the best outcome for Russia would probably be to be utterly defeated and rebuilt the same way. But of course that can never happen because Russia has nukes.

you didnt answer my question. what is the end game for ukraine if putin decides to nuke it? you cant rebuild a nuclear wasteland. chernobil will look like an untouched nature reserve in comparison. people need to honest with ukranians in what to expect from this. this is what makes the whole situation tragic

> what is the end game for ukraine if putin decides to nuke it?

Yes, this is what Putin's propagandists are repeating all the time, threatening to use nukes not just on Ukraine but also on Great Britain and other countries. Apart from the obvious absurdity of contaminating their own land, the big question is, should we agree to all Putins says just because he can use nukes? Is there any limit on what we will do to please him?

ukraine does not have a nuclear deterrent. should we appeal to putin's morality, or give ukraine realistic expectations?

We should give nukes back to Ukraine.

you want people that came from the ranks of right sector and azov batallion to have nukes? no tnx

This is what I often hear on Russian TV. Their narrative is that the war was started bu Ukraine and NATO and Russia is just defending itself. It would be just ridiculous, the problem is I know some people who actually believe it.

in 2008 nato said that ukraine will become part of nato. in 2014 the us supported an overthrow of a democraticaly elected ukranian government. i wonder what makes people suspicious

It was the people of Ukraine who overthrew him because he broke his election promise and moved to make Ukraine a vassal of Russia. That is absolutely the last thing the people of Ukraine want, so they had no choice but to overthrow him. I don't think the US had anything to do with it.

The only reason NATO says that some day Ukraine can become a member, is because Ukraine keeps asking about it. Constantly. They desperately want to join NATO, and while they don't and didn't meet NATO's criteria, it's not impossible that some day they will, and then they can join.

And considering the consequences of not being in NATO, I think it's clear that Ukraine is absolutely justified in wanting to join NATO. Things would look very different if they had indeed joined in 2008.

you seem to be pretty keen to excuse anything nato does. i think nato purpousefully did a series of things to piss russia off and ukranian people are suffering as a result, being stuck between two imperialism. also are you aware that in 2008 the vast majority of ukranian population opposed joining nato. had ukraine joined then the war would have really been over in three days, i think

I'm not excusing NATO, I'm just explaining what happened. Putin fanboys love to pretend that NATO is aggressively expansionist, but it's not. Most of eastern Europe begged to join NATO, to the point that Poland practically blackmailed Clinton into letting them join (which Clinton originally wasn't a fan of).

NATO extended its mutual defense to these countries. The only reason why that should piss off Russia is if Russia had plans to conquer those countries. Turns out they do. But that's not NATO's fault. Don't try to shift the blame to NATO here; this war is entirely, for the full 100%, Putin's fault.

you obvioisly drank the nato coolaid but please tell me whats wrong with my understanding. here goes

1990. nato makes the not one inch eastward promise

1999. nato bombs russia ally yugoslavia and takes over its southern teritory

1999. nato expands into poland and several other ex warsaw countries

2004. nato expands into ex-ussr, taking baltic states as members

2008. april. nato said it will take in georgia and ukraine

2008. may. us and majorotynof nato countries recognize the unilateral declaration of kosovo, in complete diregard of previous un agreements

2008. august. georgia tries to retake control over autonomous ethnic-minority regions. russia stops this. georgia looses any chance of becoming part of nato

2010. ukraine government abandons plans to join nato

2014. people from west ukraine are driven by busses into kiev to overthrow an elected government. us publically supports the coup. elected president flees to russia. the goverent is overthrown. east ukraine opposes the overthrow and begins to rebel against the new government.

2014. crimea seceeds from ukraine becoming part of russia

2014. civil war accross eastern ukraine, centering around donbas

2014. minsk agreements signed

2016-2019 nato suffers from being perceived as irrelevant.

2018. nato requests substantial funding to improve its information campaign. huge effort to rewrite the history of 'not an inch eastward' promise

2022. january. ukranian government publically states it has no intension of fulfilling minsk agreements

2022. february. russia invades ukraine

> 1990. nato makes the not one inch eastward promise

Never happened. In fact, Russia and NATO have explicitly in writing (1997 treaty) that they respect the right of third parties to seek security as they see fit. Nor did Russia ever bring it up until Putin needed a justification for invading Georgia.

Even any notion of such talks is absurd, given that you place it a year before the USSR collapsed. Collapse of the USSR and parts of it applying for NATO (and eventually becoming members) was inconceivable at the time. As participants have recollected, the context of talks at the time was German reunification and stationing NATO forces in Eastern Germany. Nobody could imagine that the USSR itself would soon cease to exist.

This directly ties to another point:

> 2004. nato expands into ex-ussr, taking baltic states as members

(1) NATO didn't "expand", but those countries were hell-bent on seeking security to protect themselves from getting occupied ever again through cooperation in international organizations. That was set as a foreign policy goal in 1993.

(2) How did Putin react to that in 2004 when he met Schröder days after the Baltics became full members of NATO? He said that it's fine, never brought up any alleged promises. http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/30678

cool story bro. russia bad nato good. if nato do something bad it is for good reason or it didnt happen or russia was behind it

some people just cant shake totalitarian frame of mind

Yup, pretty hard to come up with a meaningful reply when Daddy Putin said at the time that it was fine. Even hardcore Russian nationalists have grown tired of Putin's constant whining how the whole world has now wronged him: https://youtu.be/DRE8f5JzDAE

apparently unlike you, i dont pay much attention to what putin says. all you said in your last post is that something which clearly happened didnt in order to more nicely fit with your world view. hard to argue with that so i will leave it at that. an internet discussion is highly unlikely to change the course of events. my reason for posting is just to show that there exist people who think differently. but i guess to people like you i must be a paid foreign agent. uncle joe taught you well

Well, even your main propagandists had a healthy frame of mind some years ago:

https://twitter.com/Biz_Ukraine_Mag/status/15801244656647905...

It's not that Russia was always bad - there was a period when people really hope we could all live together in peace, Scorpions even recorded a song about it.

> 1999. nato expands into poland and several other ex warsaw countries

And the people in these countries (almost half of Europe!) still celebrate this day, just like the day they managed to liberate themselves from Russians. No wonder it makes Putin mad.

i think most people accross eastern europe have bigger problems than nato celebrations or russia hating. like for example, making ends meet. i wonder how many people in eastern europe would have a home today had it not been for the socialist period

This makes no sense, the opposite happened: in 2008 NATO refused to take Ukraine in. And a certain lady seems still proud of it.[0]

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220404-merkel-defend...