KrishnaK wrote:d, whether because of your exposure to Russia or the forum's slant, to assign all responsibility for Russia's current predicament to the US. This entirely ignores the threat perception of central/eastern European and Baltic states. No one compelled Russia to remain unattractive as partner whether it was politically or economically. Those were choices that Putin made.
This was what Russia was facing with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. This is excluding facts like Germany and much of EU continuing to buy gas from Russia inspite of US warnings.
Russian logic behind its perception of the NATO threat is precisely the same as Pakistan's perception of India. One that must be accepted as self evident truth and repeated ad-nauseam as justification for one entity's monopoly over the country's political scene and its resources. There's other comparisons with Pakistan as well - Russia sees itself as not getting the respect it deserves. Its GDP is a measly 1.5 trln. Barely larger than Australia or Canada.
Funnily enough the claims of Russian victory being made here mirror Pakistan's about the wars its won. Putin has miscalculated badly. Oh and btw, it isn't Ukraine that's radicalized, it's Russia.
Krishna ji, I think Cyrano ji has addressed your post, but let me add some points.
You make a relevant point about Germany. Russia has blamed US (not Germany or NATO) for what it sees as its attempts to surround Russia with hostile states and attempt regime change. We may not agree with Russia's POV, but India didn't lose 15% of its population in a war, so our views, or any other country's, are not relevant in understanding what drives Russia's security compulsions.
Russia has not threatened any NATO state. If it wanted to, it could have invaded any of the Baltics in a day (or occupied non NATO state, Georgia).
In the year preceding the Ukraine invasion, US attempted regime change in Kazakhstan and Belarus and supplied arms (through NATO) and training to Ukraine at an unprecedented level.
That said, I think Putin failed to plan adequately for the invasion as he possibly believed it would be a repeat of Crimea. US made the same mistake in estimating the force required to control Iraq and Afghanistan, so it's not that Putin was singularly incompetent. Russia is a corrupt and inefficient dictatorship. That has probably exacerbated the problem it faces. Ukraine is the same, but had decided to go with the US agenda.
Both sides have made exaggerated claims on the other sides losses. What is verifiable is that every day Russia controls more Ukrainian territory than they did the previous day and that Ukraine's army and economy is damaged more than Russia's (given Ukraine's lower GDP).