Quote (ferdia @ Apr 22 2022 06:39am)
I wholeheartedly agree that Russia has been propping up a Pro Russian Government in Ukraine for decades. I also agree that in an ideal world no other country can tell another country what it can or cannot do. However, we do not live in an ideal world and its very easy to point at another country that tells countries what to do with impunity, and when they dont agree then either they face decades long sanctions (as we see in cuba, iran) or are termed "traitors" with no backbone and are too used to "surrendering" (france).
I am all for Ukraine being EU, in Nato, open, free and all that, i have friends from ukraine for more then 20 years and they are great. The pursuit to self rule and self determine is a fundamental principal that I agree with. The problem however is that by pursuing this freedom they affected Russia's regional security. Where war was the inevitable outcome of recent (years) events I really feel that going slower and less being a dick would have been a better option for Ukraine. We knew years ago that russia would go to war over this. Therefore a gradual shift rather then an immediate shift, as i have previously said in this topic, was the safer option. i.e. wait a few more decades. now i really dont mind if you want to challenge this point "not let them be free immediately" but that thought process is very naive.
But what does open and free and fair mean, in this context?
Ukraine had free and fair elections, at least neither the west nor east found issue with them. But Ukraine was a country divided, and the pro-Russian east out-voted the pro-Western west. We supported a coup d'etat and replaced a Russian state oligarchy pilfering their natural resources with a western state oligarchy pilfering their natural resources. They lost what little self-determination they had by being torn between two masters, and certainly never gained our idealized society. Yanukovych was balancing the interests of a society leaning progressively more towards the EU against the greater stake and willingness to act of Russia, and that got tossed out the window in the name of chaos and bloodshed and a proxy war. The attractions of Europe that so many Ukrainians wanted were really just the luxuries of wealth, not the high minded principles we abandon to prop up coups and arm nazis.