John wrote:vinod wrote:Zelenski is being made into a hero, ordinary Ukrainians are being shown as very brave and defending their home, anti war protests. All these are meant to prolong the war in Ukraine and west has pretty much succeeded in it so far.
All Putin had to was recognize the two republics and get some
guarantee that NATO won’t expand to Ukraine in return he will guarantee Russia won’t attack Ukraine. He could have gotten that deal and walked away a winner.
NATO never gives membership to a country that has border disputes. I mean, NEVER. Its part of their membership rules if one cares to check. So, NO this was never about Ukraine not ever joining NATO. It was more about the direction in which Uk is going thanks to EU / NATO / West and US support.
I got to read an article where Uk actually bifurcated the church and tried to build their own Patriarchy. I missed it earlier. Trying to get the link that a colleague in a forecasting competition passed on.
So sequence roughly could have been as follows:
a. Putin has always been upset about USSR dissolution and has mentioned it must times.
b. He has been at the helm for roughly 2 decades. He was assuming he will eventually get his sphere of interest. In Baltics / E Europe etc. When he realised it wont happen in 2k8, he did Georgia.
c. ECU came sometime from 2010-2012. Cant recall timeline too well but I remember Uk didnt want to join in the customs union.
d. With Russian pop scare and Uk and Rus being same, Uk is a large part of Rus agenda and the pop / talent and resource pool is sig and Rus cant do w/o it.
e. 2014, Euromaidan when Uk wanted to look at NATO / EU membership. US and Nuland also caught with hand in sugar pot. Color revolution but Rus took Crimea. and parts of 2 oblasts. Tech ensured NATO membership cant happen.
f. EU lot more sensible and didnt want to give membership - only dangle the carrot in front of their eyes ala Turkey. But never give in.
g. Uk constitution changed to not look for eventual membership of NATO / EU - independent foreign pol etc. Red lines from Russia.
h. 2 dispensations didnt do much to enforce Minsk agreement or cave in. Also split Church (which I missed).
i. No agreement on NS2 even though Russ tries to engage EU and get agreement.
Rus realises that its giving up a lot (in terms of sanctions due to Crimea etc etc) while west / US giving Ukr enough to ensure they can eventually take back even Crimea. Somewhere something has triggered and we wont know for sure. Its happened. But def not because of NATO membership. Even as is, Uk couldn't have gotten into NATO for reasons mentioned above.