>Merkel was trying to mke her past actions sound more noble. The truth is that it was far closer to appeasement. The Minsk agreements were not in good faith not just because Russia repeatedly broke both of them (while pretending not to be a party to them of that the so called republics were not Russian puppets) but also because they also broke earlier agreements to respect Ukraine's independence and borders by invading in 2014.

You can't just call any attempt at peace "appeasement" even if it is followed by conflict. You can't realistically call it appeasement if it is not entered into in good faith either. Hearkening back to WW2 terminology is so ironic because the Azov battalion and many high-ranking officers in Ukraine are Nazis to this day. As you may have been aware, the Nazis fought the Russians in Ukraine. I don't know the details of who broke what and when, but I think we can agree that if one party is breaking an agreement then the other party does not have an obligation to continue with the agreement.

>It was a total and absolute non issue. NATO membership takes full agreement and everyone including Putin knew that there was very little interest in Ukraine joining NATO. Well very little interest from NATO members at least before 2022, in Ukraine interest skyrocketed after 2014 when Russia invaded.

It wasn't, and I provided multiple links showing it is a real issue. It's even been discussed this past month. Your link about the Gorbachev thing is interesting, but I don't know the original source for that (and I haven't read the whole thing, sorry if it's in there). You should know, the man is a politician and as such he can lie about anything. He presided over the dissolution of the Soviet Union after all. I've read that Putin is not friendly with him so it would not be surprising if he DID lie.

Russia says it invaded in 2014 because it is their impression that the West was influencing Ukraine's politics, and trying to cut off their access to ports in Crimea. They invaded Crimea to secure those ports.

>Right and they should be let in but that is from 2024 not the initial Russian invasion in 2014 or the the start of the full scale invasion in 2022.

I gave you a link from 2022 and a link from 2024.

>It was Ukraine pushing to be part of the EU because they saw how rich Poland was getting. They wanted a rich much less corrupt future and saw the EU as their only path. The EU was at best shrugging about this.

EU, NATO, same thing. I read 21/30 EU countries are in NATO. The ones that aren't are very small. Up to recently Sweden and Finland were not in NATO, but that has changed.

>Russia's intrests or Putin's interests? In my opinion trying to revive the empire while increasing authoritarianism at home is wrecking Russia not helping it, Putin might disagree. It hasn't made their security situation better considering the Ukrainians control part of Kursk now and launch drones into Russia occasionally(something they would have no interest in if Russia hadn't invaded).

I don't think there would have been a push to revive the empire if so many ex-Soviet states were not added to NATO. As I said, the Russians have a strategic interest in keeping missiles as far away as possible. Ukraine is being demolished and sold off now. It's not in a better situation than they would have been if they had tried to avoid the war. I can't say if trying harder to avoid the war would not have put them in a different bad position, but at least there would be no question then. The US will not suffer Russian missiles in Cuba, Mexico, or Canada. Russia will not tolerate certain weapons in the hands of non-neutral countries close to its border either.

>Americas interests are that a democracatic country is not conquered and that Russia stops trying to conquer its neighbors is a much more legitimate intrest then Russia's intrest in reviving the empire by conquering their neigbors. And of course Poland Estonia Latvia and Lithuania's intrest in not being next

You mean the democratic country of Ukraine that has been skipping its elections and banning any opposition parties that want to end the war? Give me a break. Nobody knows if Russia would stop with Ukraine but I believe they would. Russia will not invade Poland because that's going to start WW3.

Nobody is going to fight Russia seriously over Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania which have a combined population of less than New York City. Get your mind right.

>That's because things look pretty clear.

It's rarely clear with these kinds of things. This is not one of those rare cases, but I think the facts lean in Russia's favor.

I suspect you live in Ukraine, and that's why you're replying to me and possibly using multiple accounts or sending friends to reply to me. This stuff is very unlikely to convince me, especially the downvoting of my comments. I've been researching this issue since 2022 and I've probably done hundreds of hours of analysis on the subject.

I'm replying to your other comment from your other account below:

>The story about broken NATO promises was invented as an excuse for the war, the same way Hitler had no shortage of excuses for invading Poland.

Can you be any more hysterical?

>This is Ukraine's president. The photos were taken a few months apart, before and after Russians poisoned him. The US treats Mexico better than this and that's why the Mexican-Russian alliance remains a far-fetched fiction and not anything remotely plausible.

That's horrible, but the story does not say the photos were taken a few months apart. Why do you suppose he was poisoned? Could it be because he was too pro-West?