Quote (SwamiVivekananda @ Jan 24 2024 11:05am)
You seem pretty knowing of this region/conflict. As an outsider and someone who doesn't know much about Russia/Ukraine when I look at a map of Ukraine especially the region around the Black Sea I could see it's strategic significance for both countries.
Are you implying that basically Ukraine concede 30-50% of it's country Kyiv south to Odesa west. Would that end this war persay because I listened to Putin's speech right after he invaded Ukraine and it sounded like he didn't want to "take all ok Ukraine" but just some western provinces that were already more Russian then Ukranian. He mentioned the West's/NATO's ambitions as well as the bioweapons labs right on their boarder(who wouldn't feel uneasy about the United States and Ukraine literally developing bio-weapons right on the boarder).
Not saying I support Russia but what's the real battle here? What does Russia actually want in Ukraine and why does it seem like this isn't going to spill into WW3? Sorry for all the questions it's much easier to get someone's opinion then read news articles from two propaganda outlets and try and have an informed opinion if ya know what I mean.
Where Ukraine can go right now, what options it has available- is a different discussion than what Ukraine has gained or lost from the events set in motion since the Maidan in 2014. We're talking the latter, not the former.
In the former, there's really no options for either side, the conflict has frozen and its clear enough what the outcome is- a divided Ukraine, with Russia seizing the ethnic Russian parts and western Ukraine joining the EU & NATO but only after being thoroughly devastated. Barring any unlikely implosion of the country, that seems to be the outcome. Then the latter part of the question is, how have Ukrainians fared with such an outcome? Western Ukraine has been depopulated, its infrastructure obliterated, its resources seized. Its in shambles right now and there's no indication it will get better in the next 20 years. It was already the poorest country in Europe, now its like post-famine Ireland. Things couldn't be going much worse.
The Maidan had plenty of genuine diehard nationalist Ukrainians who wanted to split from Russia and were willing to overthrow a democracy to do it, its not like a color revolution is carried out by a bunch of CIA plants. We even had those nationalists working with Biden before he became president, and in the Trump impeachment like Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella. These people thought it was in their country's interests to break with Russia and join the EU. Even if it meant provoking a war. And they got their revolution, got their war, and got blown the fuck out. The result has been a bit like the outcome of the khwarazmians refusing to pay tribute to the mongol horde.
Doesn't really impact me what fate Ukraine gets from all this. Its incidental to our national interests at best, but more irrelevant really. We don't care if Ukrainians get slaughtered and we sure aren't willing to fight a WW3 on their behalf. It does become our problem when Biden jeopardizes our geopolitical interests in pursuit of this dumb conflict
This post was edited by Goomshill on Jan 24 2024 11:32am