“Then even Ukraine, its closest historical ally,”
A lot of Ukrainians don’t see it that way. Too many remember the Holodomor in which systematic starvation by Russian control killed somewhere beteeen 4 and 7 million people. And those who are Jewish remember the pogroms. No, it wasn’t Putin who ordered them, but the history makes it very hard to consider Ukraine and Russia to ever have been “allies”.
@SpeakerToManagers There were of course huge crimes in the Soviet era. But Ukraine's history is as closely linked with Russia.
Whatever label you put on a thousand years of Russia-Ukraine relationship, it remains deeply aggressive to Russia for NATO & EU to try to pull Ukraine into a hostile military bloc.
@2legged @mic @cstross
And it’s not deeply aggressive for Russia to want to get back by force of arms the territory it took by force of arms and nuclear threat? This is geopolitical imperial maneuvering, in which Russia was the first one to escalate to shooting war. They invaded Crimes and then tried to invade western Ukraine and got stuck but were more interested in blowing up apartment buildings than backing out.
Tankies, like this one, deny us Ukrainians any agency. We cannot act on free will, only as puppets of evil US (or NATO).
Just block and forget.
Liar, @older. I am not a tankie. I deplore all these big military powers. I am just noting that piling up a military alliance on Russia's borders was threatening and provocative, and destabilising.
As to "denying Ukraine's agency", that's another of your lies. At no point have I denied Ukraine's share of responsibility for the idiotic goading the Russian bear.
Yall goaded the big monster, and you got mauled. Now pls stop whining.