Framing is everything. Most of the ex-USSR states are friendly to Russia and have Russian influence and somehow the people there don't feel like slaves or vassals to Russia. *shrug*

Ironically most Ukrainians lived way better pre-2014 when Ukraine was a 'Russian vassal'. My wife's aunt in west Ukraine was making wedding dresses and owned her own business in which she shipped these products to Russia and got wealthy doing that. Post 2014, all went to shit, and now they came to the US as a refugees, working long hours at a shit job to afford 3k rent in Portland Oregon, barely scraping by.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Oct 16 2024 07:59pm

I can kinda understand that, it is somewhat similar to how Germany is a "vassal" of USA and NATO at the moment, and things aren't going too well with the huge influx of illegal migrants no ?

This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on Oct 16 2024 08:20pm

The western two thirds of Ukraine, the parts which Russia didn't already control prior to Feb 2022, didn't feel this way though; they were strongly pro-EU and pro-West. Dito, by the way, for the Baltics, who are also ex-USSR states and no longer want anything to do with Russia.


"Life is better during peacetime than during war."
You sound like someone telling the wife of an abusive husband that she should keep her head down and take it, because he'll only beat her up even harder if she speaks up or tries to leave him.





Do the United States invade Germany if Germany refuses to go along with US wars, or makes decisions which go against US geopolitical or economic interests? No.
Russia did just that to Ukraine. So no, the situations are not comparable in the slightest.

I don't see what the European refugee crisis has to do with this debate. That's a crisis of our own making. Our politicians actively decided to open the floodgates years ago and actively decide against closing them ever since. Neither Obama, Clinton, Biden, Trump, Erdogan, Putin nor Netanyahu forced us to do that.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 16 2024 10:16pm

They don't need to invade you. Just need to put you in a position to follow their foreign policies . And your citizens will have to bear the cost. I think that's the most brilliant part about them.

Further more, they kind of invaded you already in some sort of manner but that is just what I think.
It's a personal opinion.

You mean like when they wanted us to join them in the largest foreign war they have waged during the past 50 years and we said 'no'?!

Your refusal to join the war have consequences. But then again, I am not sure how significant you are going to be even if you join them.

I was talking about the Iraq War, and I can't think of any major consequences or retaliation by the Americans when we refused to go along.

Retaliation doesn't come out in the open, not with "Allies" at least on paper. The PRISM project on your government was probably part of it.

This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on Oct 17 2024 04:03am

They spied on all of us, not just on the governments which refused to join the Iraq War.

USA will never go against " Allies " out in the open if they do not toe the line. That is just not in their interest. Germany can be used for a latter date
Like now.