Perhaps it is because in 2014, Russia broke its promises and stole Crimea with a military invasion and the west figured they could not be trusted and would almost certainly do the same thing again; which they did.
By the way, how many people died in the Russian invasion of Crimea and resulting occupation? Surely it was very bloody (like the current war) because Crimeans didn't want it, right?
There was never a promise.
>Beset by chaos at home, an increasingly beleaguered Yeltsin turned to historical revisionism. He began to interpret the Two Plus Four Treaty as a ban on NATO expansion east of Germany, on the basis that it only permitted alliance activities on East German territory. He (and later Putin) claimed that the failure to mention Eastern Europe, together with the stipulated restrictions in relation to former GDR terrain, meant an implicit Western rejection of eastward enlargement.
Also later
> At preliminary bilateral talks in Helsinki in March 1997, Clinton refused to respond to Yeltsin’s call for binding restrictions on the establishment of NATO security infrastructure in new member states.
ha ha
"Kissinger confirms US verbal promise to Gorbachev not to expand NATO eastward"
"ha ha" indeed.
"There was never a promise"
Here's a hint: Only one of these two promises would even be relevant.
The promise of not expanding NATO never existed, BUT EVEN IF IT DID then Russia should be invading the US, not Ukraine. There is no justification to invade Ukraine as a defense against NATO, as even if you believe NATO controls Ukraine (it doesn't), taking that land merely increases the size of Russia's border with NATO.
But you know all this.
I am countering the pro-Washington, pro-war talking point that USA-RF diplomacy isn't viable because Russia violated Budapest. Well, so did USA, before the Crimea crisis. Find a better excuse to undermine diplomacy and justify bloodshed.
But Russia is the one launching a genocidal campaign, leveling cities, and posturing to intentionally cause a nuclear disaster at the largest nuclear plant in Europe. I don't think anyone should engage with them diplomatically until their government is completely reformed. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and wounded. Civilian targets are hit on a daily basis. They have lost the right to diplomacy. Any further tolerance of this country will lead to more instances of what we're experiencing now. Run the war to its conclusion when the government inevitably collapses.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35843312 (May 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30593145 (March 2022)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128649 (Jan 2022)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29629671 (Dec 2021)
Continuing like this will get your account banned here, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the intended use of the site, we'd appreciate it.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Annexing all of Ukraine's natural gas fields under the guise of saving ethnic Russians wasn't acceptable to Ukraine was it? The agreement you discuss is a defacto conquering of Ukraine.
Notice that it is purely focused on security guarantees. It does not say, as you incorrectly asserted, that Russia gets sole rights to Ukraine's natural resources. Both Russian AND Western billionaires would continue to be able to exploit them. Sure, Russian ones might have an advantage because it's on their doorstep and they speak the same language. But that's geography for you.
Ironically, since Washington refused this treaty, Russia will likely gain exclusive economic access to eastern (done) and southern (WIP) Ukraine, and former Ukraine will become landlocked if not dissolve entirely to Poland et al.
https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/euobs-media/30196762d9...
Please act in good faith.
FWIW, disagreement does not equate to "bad faith".
The "Russia invaded Ukraine mainly for its natural resources narrative" requires extraordinary cherry-picking of historical fact to support.
- Russia already has oodles of natural resources. They export them to the West for a bargain. This is not Japan in WW2.
- Do a modicum of research on post-Soviet IR in Europe. What were Gorbachev's and Putin's agendas vis-a-vis Europe, based not on Applebaumian psychoanalysis but public statements and action? Study the Budapest Memo, Putin's 2007 MSC speech, Minsk agreements, etc.
- Also do a modicum of research on the agendas from the other side. What was Brzezinski saying about post-Soviet geopolitics? What is Victoria Nuland working on in the Bush, Obama, and Biden State Departments? What was Yalta European Strategy about? How did Zelensky rapidly rise from clown to president? What does the leaked Nuland-Pyatt call reveal?
There is an enormous amount of historical fact that we can build our understanding on, rather than resorting to simplistic Zeihan-tier pseudo-intellectualism.
They aren't mutually exclusive, but again, the occupation of gas fields, and now the embargo of grain, is about depriving the Ukrainian government. not domestic shortages. That is the thing that makes me mention bad faith. I have researched these agendas, and I recheck the records and rumors frequently. The zeihen doomerism is disenguine hawking of his trade and book, but what makes you think that this war is all an American diplomatic failure brought at the behest of western billionaires? A war is complicated, and simplifying it isn't helpful.
Merkel, Macron, Bennett, et al. have asserted that Washington+London are more or less sabotaging any diplomatic solution that doesn't involve the inevitable collapse of Russia.
Russia has put their diplomatic cards on the table multiple times, including in late 2021 where they literally drafted a "security guarantee" treaty that, modulo further negotiations, Washington would simply have to sign to get Russian troops away from Ukraine. And Washington didn't even try to call a bluff, they just ignored the opportunity. Yet they constantly miscall bluffs of military escalation. Truly baffling.
It cannot be overstated how utterly nonexistent the diplomacy has been between Washington and Moscow particularly since 2014. Because one side sees the other as a fundamentally inferior state.