I'm not sure, but my read on Ukrainian discreteness is that Russia is referring to Kievan Rus as their shared heritage, but that, despite their name, Russia doesn't inherit the culture of all rus-ic peoples, but inherits the particular culture of the principality of Muscovy, which is different from western rus-ics
Great point! The Russia becomes "Russia" in the 18th century by renaming on the will of Emperor. Actually the thin ties from modern Russia to the medieval Kievan Rus' goes to... the northeast province feodal that in 13th century gathered an army to going with war to the southwest (main) part, destroyed the country, destroyed the capital city Kyiv, theft the goods and massacre a lot of population. So the enemy destroying the Kyivan Rus' at first by himself, than fully canceled it as subordinate ally with Tataro-Mongolian khanate, claiming themselves as "proudly origin of Rus'". Don't be misleading : Russia is not the same as Kievan Rus'. They pretending to be look like and you thought that, but in reality they country origins was a threat to the Rus' from the early beginning.
I believe the historical mistake Putin refers to is not the independence of Ukraine gained in 1991. But the “creation of Ukraine by Lenin”. It’s popular narative that neglects the existance of Ukrainians and claims that the language was artificially created. And so was the country that supposedly never existed was created by Lenin.
@@poushie1233so were a Kuban state, a Crimea state, a North Karelia state and many others... It was one of many nonviable statelets created in the chaos of the Russian revolutuon that died as it settled down and went into obscurity.
Only recently have I discovered your channel. Thank you for your videos. You focus on evaluating sound logical arguments. Your channel is definitely worthwhile subscribing to.
The third argument is self contradictory. If Ukraine can't enhance its security at Russia's expense, then Russia can't enhance its own security at Ukraine's expense. Invading Ukraine sure seems like it's at Ukraine's expense, even if it improves Russian security by stopping Ukraine from joining NATO.
Ukraine joining NATO doesn’t even take anything away from Russia. Ukraine is not an asset owned by Russia, they are an independent nation that can choose what they want for themselves. If other countries can’t enhance their security in any way as long as it theoretically could impact the security of another, then nobody would be allowed to manufacture any kinds of weapons. In Putin’s sense, the very notion of improving one’s own security situation makes all others’ less secure in comparison. Russia is the one trying to do the taking, not Ukraine.
@@mrbeezkeez1599 "The way it ended was with The West agreeing to expand NATO further East" -- I believe that what you meant to say is that Raegan vows to not -- NOT! -- expand NATO farther eastwards of the territory of the former GDR.
"Invading Ukraine sure seems like it's at Ukraine's expense, even if it improves Russian security by stopping Ukraine from joining NATO." -- what kind of naïve and, frankly, artless argument is this? Might is right, what don't you understand?
@@mrbeezkeez1599 It wasn't actually an agreement though, there exists no treaty text anywhere saying that NATO promises not to expand further east if the USSR agrees to collapse under it's own weight. It was at best a backroom promise, which holds absolutely no water once the parties have exited the room. There is however the Budapest Memorandum where both the US and Russia promises to safeguard the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It is non-binding ofcourse but at least it's something that exists on paper.
A small observation regarding the NATO point: Russia has never been invaded since NATO was formed (but, as a side note, has happily invaded other countries). If you look back at the last 220 or so years, the time with NATO is actually the longest time period for Russia without getting invaded. 1812 Napoleon 1853 Turkey in the Crimea 1905 Japan in Manchuria 1914 Germany & Co in WW1 1941 Germany & Co in WW2 Now that's not an argument in and of itself, as there are many other factors than NATO playing I to that, but still important to note. It just makes Putin's whole NATO-is-such-a-threat rhetoric a little less persuasive.
Now let’s take in the fact that nato was created to keep Russia from expanding. We can easily see how much nato has expanded, slowly inching closer to Russia. There were past agreement made for nato to not keep expanding toward Russia borders. No country wants a threat at there border. The Cuban missile crisis didn’t go well. There is a professor on RUclips who talks about the complicated problem but it is worth looking into to have a little background into this conflict.
@@danjacobs6219 you probably mean Dr. Mearsheimer. I've watched his stuff, it's good input. But his approach is very focused on purely strategic thinking and only on the great powers. Here's a few thoughts: NATO expansion: a free and sovereign country joins a coalition based on its own free will. Handshakes and aperitifs follow. Sovjet/Russian expansion: Russia threatens and then invades a nation that mostly doesn't want to join them. War, death, destruction and suppression follow. In Mearsheimer's presentations, those things come across as equal. I beg to differ. Talk to a Polish anti NATO citizen and then talk to a Tchetchen war orphan. See who suffered more under the respective faction's expansion. (the first Russian invasion into Chechnia happened before NATO expansion, by the way) Let's not only think of the two big factions but also of the fate of the people living between them. Again, I'm not endorsing all or even most of NATO's behaviour. They sure have their points to blame. It just seems to me that Russian / Sovjet behaviour is usually 10 times worse. TBC
@@danjacobs6219It is very simple, Finland and Sweden joined NATO as Russia invaded Ukraine. The warsaw pact states and baltic states joined NATO to not be victim of Russian aggression. We see states who protect their interests against an aggressor.
@@TorianTammasRussia did not invade finland during soviet era, and finland stayed neutral. Now that russia is weaker they pose a bigger threat than during cold war. Are you serious? P.S. Saying soviet era may be misunderstanding, lm referring about the cold war, since winter war can be technically said to have happened during soviet era.
There is always justification for anything. If you are stronger, you make the rule. Just ask the US. Borders always move around throughout history. Just ask Israel.
@@ThePereubu1710 If the most powerful and most respected nation does it but not only gets away with it but convinces every other nation on the planet to join I'd say that justifies it.
Good video, the only thing that really bothers me is what the conclusion is based on in the end: "It seems like the opportunity for diplomacy was there and it seems that Russia didn't take it". It is impossible to know if this was the case, because the public is simply not in the loop. We have no idea what negotiations were conducted behind closed doors, so there is no evidence for your assumption that Russia was not willing to solve the issue with diplomacy in the end.
I am sure Russia was willing to settle the 'issues' diplomatically, but only by the Ukraine and NATO diplomatically granting all of his demands. Further, it is well recognized in contract law that you cannot make a valid contract by holding your gun to somebodies head. Similarly, in international affairs, negotiating while holding the threat of immediate invasion if you do not get what you want from the negotiations is not a valid negotiation tactic. Ergo, regardless of whether or not their were diplomatic contacts between Russia and Ukraine in the weeks immediately prior to the invasion, Russia did not use diplomacy to accomplish its ends.
I agree. There were alternatives to war other than diplomacy and war. For NATO concerns, Russia could have improved its defensive capabilities. For the residents of Eastern Ukraine, Russia could have offered Russian passports, etc.
@@AdrienLegendre Russia DID provide russian passports to the residents of Eastern Ukraine since 2014 (and that's a violation of ukrainian law, btw) as well as to other people around ex-USSR territories, just to have an excuse to invade Georgia (2008), Ukraine (2014, 2022) or, possibly, Moldova. Russia isn't interested in those residents (in fact, they were the first and the only (almost) victims of the invasion). They sent eastern ukrainian men to involuntary fight against their ukrainians brothers (and almost all of those who had been sent died), they literally destroyed almost every city and town and village where the slightest resistance was found, etc,etc,etc Yes, i do know what i'm talking about, because i'm a russian citizen myself. Even more, my granny and dad were ukrainians from the future "separatists" territories, so yes, i know what's happening. The only motive Putin has wasn't mentioned in this video. His real motive is to stay as a president for the rest of his life and that's it. He doesn't care how many millions would die. NATO argument doesn't make sense (Putin even said that Finland joining NATO isn't a threat, wtf?), it's just an excuse. Oh, come on. There is a lot i could write on the subject but the truth is that ALL Putin's arguments were fakes and couldn't be taken seriously, because his goals weren't told. No bad guy in chief would say 'I'm a big bad guy and i want to keep being a big bad guy and you all must do whatever i say because i'm a bad guy'. They always hide behind false reasoning and propaganda.
Russia signed diplomatic peace agreements in both September of 2014 and March of 2022,. Each of these deals were honored by Russia until broken by American-backed western Ukrainian forces.
I am a russian speaking ukraining all my life and I didn't feel any oppresion, trevelled around the country (also in ukranian speaking areas) and didn't encounter alienation or watever. And you can occasinally meet some degraded people under some substance in any country. I didn't see any 'torch marches' as in nazi germany in my entire life. Only on russian TV and I belive their frequency and extent was not more than in russia itself. Some minority extremist gatherings did happened in Ukraine but their activity is not more than in any other civilized country. Definitely not the goverment stance. Regarding arson in Odesa the proper investigation and punishment of the guilty never happened and there has never been official findings announced. Some local officials in charge fled to other countries. As I understand the goverment decided to keep silence about the event. That's sad to say the least. At least they could punish for criminal negligence... I do agree with the points stated in the video. Our country has a lot of problems and controversies but they only were used as excuse for casus beli. And lastly you can see very clear picture of their intentions if you watch russian TV. After two years of war they are not shy to state their intentions anymore right on the state TV. You don't need a lot of political background for this. There are a lot videos with english subtitles from russian TV.
For all the facts. Look up utube The Grayzone with Max Blumenthal, The New Atlas with Brian Berletic, Patrick Lancaster, George Galloway, Graham Phillips. I will post some of their links in the next comment in case utube deletes
@@romany8125 and what point do you wanna make here, mind i ask? Comparing a war where you can't even intervene and only watch one or both sides with something you could and naturally would intervene doesn't sound fair or relatable at all And either way, let's say we could stop the guy who was beating the guy or "doing" the women, we (or maybe just the police) could still interrogate him and see their perspective (not trying to say rape and beating someone to death is something justified tho, just like this war, everyone is technically in the wrong)
Thank you for your overviews, which are always as logical, unbiased and simple as possible. I follow you with interest from Italy. I hope your channel grows, it is a great format!
The analysis is right, the conclusion is a bit off. The fact that Russia had warned the west for years, the west are ignorant to take it seriously. You think a few days before the war could result anything? The west is lead by bunch of weak men. That's the natural result. As they say, strong men creating good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times ...
@Com K well then don't bullshit me about it. I just think that ideally, two larger nations shouldn't use smaller nations sandwiched between them as chess pawns. Although that's not going to happen in my life.
@Com K Surprise: people who don't fight in a war, have this choice of remaining neutral. Also, when I talked about two large nations, I in no way included Ukraine.
@@landmerry_6742 Russia didn't respect Ukraine's sovereignty. Simple as that. Can I tell you what to do if I'm not harming you? You will get on your knees when they want you to.
I might be mistaken, but there is also fourth argument. They also condemned NATO's (or EU's, I don't remember exactly) East expansion a lot, stating that it contradicted agreements made in 90ths.
@@PolishBehemoth that sounds like a self fulfilling prophecy. Nato keeps expanding, going against the promise that they wouldn't and reach a critical red line. This forces Russia's hand to invade Ukraine to make a point and somehow this proves that Nato expansion was necessary? The West (the US in particular) is just as guilty of this war as Russia is if not more in my opinion.
The argument against Putin's second point is, 1. Zelenskyy had said he would abandon any attempt to join NATO. 2. Olaf Scholz had already stated that "as long as he was Chancellor, he would not allow Ukraine to join NATO.
The NATO charter does not allow countries which are engaged in civil conflict to become members. For as long as there was fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukraine was not going to join NATO.
And yet, Blinken & co. kept going on about an open doors policy. Zelensky later went on to admit in an interview to CNN, that he was explicitly told that Ukraine would never join NATO or the EU, but that they would publicly continue to claim they would. So it looks like the West was deliberately bluffing in order to appear strong and tough to Russia, and inadvertently made things worse in the process. This whole situation reminds me of a situation we had on IRC back in 2014 where two of my staff members were acting all tough and uncompromising to a guy to the point that the guy got pissed off and began DDoS'ing us hard. Then, when I realized that literally the only way to resolve the situation was to negotiate with him, and actually resolved the situation, I was called weak. Then, it all repeated with another guy (those two clearly learned nothing), and once again, I was demanded to never negotiate, never surrender... well, all until we did the maths and realized we needed €5000/month tier anti-DDoS protection to block the guy's full capability, so we once again realized that negotiation was the only way to get out of it, which at that time, meant kicking the entire channel where it all started, ie. complete capitulation. Sure, one could say that me negotiating with the first DDoS'er emboldened the second one, but one could easily claim that in fact, those two staff members of mine acting all tough and uncompromising until we got DDoS'ed, was what actually emboldened the second one as he had learned from the first one that the only way to get the staff to act reasonably was to DDoS. And I think that could easily apply here - in all its acting tough and uncompromising (while behind the back, in fact doing exactly what Russia demanded them to do), they inadvertently angered Russia to the point of invading Ukraine. And I suspect that now, even if they finally make concessions to Russia to end this war, they have already ensured China invades Taiwan, as they have likely made China think that the only way to get concessions from the West is if you do something unspeakable that will shock them. Ie. just like in my IRC situation 2014, the Western leaders here have, with their tough and uncompromising stance, started a chain reaction that will only end well with the West's complete capitulation. Well, if China does decide to have its own go, the West *may* be able to deter them if they show they learned their lesson and this time, making concessions.
@@OBrasilo Taiwan and Ukraine are completely different situations. Taiwan (the Republic of China) has been a part of China since at least the 17th century, and as the last refuge of the Chinese nationalist government it sees itself as the legitimate government of all China. Any conflict between Taiwan and China would just be a resumption of the civil war that ended in 1949. Ukraine was granted its independence by the USSR, who were also a guarantor of its sovereign integrity. As a sovereign independent nation surely Ukraine has the right to determine its own destiny. Putin complains about NATO and the EU constantly encroaching on Russia, so Putin needs to ask himself why former Soviet republics don't want to join with Russia? Putin believes in a Russia as set by Aleksandr Dugin in his "Foundations of Geopolitics" and since he came to power has been working to bring it to fruition.
the argument is “trust us bro, we wont do it”. like they did in 1999 and 2004 and 2007 and 2009 and 2017 and 2020. sure anybody in the russian government will believe this, lol
3:42 A more appropriate analogy, in terms of geographical proximity and culture, would be England saying that independent Ireland or Scotland would be a mistake.
It would be an even better analogy to say that US wanted to capture Britain based on the fact that they share common blood and language and used to be in one country
If by Ireland you mean Southern Ireland, it is an independent state. Saying that an independent Scotland would be a mistake is hardly analogous to invading a peaceful country.
@@BuckeyeRutabaga Your analogy stands. Just add language to it. What's spoken in Scotland is a variation of Middle English, much closer to modern English than Ukrainian is to Russian.
7:33 ''one country can't justify the invasion of another because they believe a government is being aggressive in a civil conflict''... Really? What would be ''the proper'' justification then? Maybe claiming that a country has chemical weapons, which were never found? Or defending democracy? Or to free the people of another country from their government?
A perfect example of how the west uses liberal internationalism as an iron rod to criticise their opponents when pursuing actions aimed towards guaranteeing their State's safety whereas when they do it for not even existential safety reasons it is perfectly justifiable. Alexander Dugin is right in correctly assessing liberalism to have become stale and rigid and therefore totalitarian in its reaction to any sort of opposition to it.
@@marinadowden6038 it’s more like the cuban missile crisis. When nato adds countries and puts arms in those countries aimed at Russia..they are threatened. The Minsk agreement was supposed to halt additions to nato. We, the west, broke the agreement 13 times. A Russian friendly government of Ukraine was overthrown by the USA. So why wouldn’t this be analogous to the Cuban missile crisis!!!
Also you should consider the fact that non of ex-KGB agent's spoken statements does not reflect his real intentions and underlying reasons. Statement of him is an instrument of achieving his real goals but not a mean of communication.
re: 10:45 , Ryan what leaders begged Putin to negotiate? There were only two that mattered: Presidents Zelensky and Biden Please!! refer me to where either of them offered to institute the Minsk agreement as an alternative to war. or did Biden urge a backing off of Zelensky's Munich intimation that he needs nuclear weapons. I do remember Blinken referring to Russian proposals as " non-starters"
He's biased. He didn't even talk about the coup lead by the US, the non respect of the NATO extension and the minks agreement. Also the attacks on donesk are well documented but he didn't even take a glance at it. It's not the only video where he is showing history on one side. It's the same for his video on China & Taïwan and even on the 2nd world war. This is a representation of our western media nowadays. They are ready to rewrite history to follow their narratives.
I’ve just subscribed to your RUclips channel after watching your excellent presentations on fascism. Your work is a gold standard for that rare commodity of well thought out, nuanced analysis of complex issues that employs with deftness social media’s extraordinary power to present visually and convincingly supporting evidence.
Using Putin's logic, we should have attacked the USSR when we had a monopoly on nuclear weapons based on the suspicion that they might become an existential threat in the future. Maybe we should have bombed China when the USSR wanted us to so they didn't become an existential threat. Peter Zeihan has a hypothesis that Russia is attacking because it sees imminent demographic decline and it had to attack now because in the future, it would be unable to do so. So they must extend their borders to more defensible locations, plug certain natural invasion routes, and create defensive depth. If Ukraine fell, Moldova would be next, and then he'd do to the Baltics what he did to the Donbas. Putin thinks of the West as weak, corrupt, and too hedonistic to stand up to him. My own feeling is that Putin envisions himself as Peter the Great mixed with a bit of Stalin. He is permanently locked into a Cold War mindset where the West is terminally weak and decadent but ideologically threatening. We were all deluded into thinking Russia had the 2nd best military in the world, and he shared that delusion. He also had a delusion that Ukraine was going to roll over and play dead. Putin's psychology is not to negotiate for something when he thinks he can just take it. I don't believe he feared the West for a heartbeat. We all thought he had a military far superior to any individual military in Europe and more nuclear weapons than would be needed to deter any invasion. Ukraine was never getting into NATO. He had a grip on Europe's energy. NATO was braindead and it will be all over before the divided and narcissistic Americans can get their act together. He was given the information he wanted to hear and believed it without question because he needed it to be the truth.
I dont think nato exspansion would be the line he would take. Because in the tucker interview carson layed it out for him to take that path but putin went on a historical rant, meanwhile Putin knew an western adince was going to consume it. Sorry for the bad english
True, that rant was certainly wasting a good opportunity. Much could have been different if Putin had been a better communicator. He did eventually turn focus to the other points, but most viewers were gone by then.
Welp but from Putin's point of view at a military level, the "call to negotiate" could just be seen as a stalling tactic, as on the ground this situation is at the zenith of favorable conditions for his invasion. Any later and the conditions of war become less favorable. So I'm not very surprised with his current perception, that he decided to pursue this line of decisions.
Putin’s reasoning has always been intellectually dishonest. It’s true, Russia probably does feel threatened by Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership. However, Russia has proved time and time again that they are the type of threat that NATO exists to quell in the first place. As an analogy, Putin crying about Ukraine joining NATO is like a bully beating you up because you told the teacher about him bullying you. It doesn’t hold up, and no one who isn’t already compromised believes them.
Russia has proved time and time again that they are the type of threat that NATO exists to quell in the first place... sounds like all your reasoning is "Rusia is a bad guy". same story telling applies to Iraqis and Afganistan ... list can go on and on. Creating and naming enamies are the reasons for thousands years of human wars. a nation or a group of nations seeking absolute geo-political advantage and absolute security over others won't make you safe. the other end of the road is either you destroy your enemy, like Iraq, or set fire on yourself. remember Rusia has nuclear weapon. you may have many smart strategies to win the war and gain absolute advantage over Rusia except one for peace with giving your opponent some room to survive.
Russia never attempted to even one time step across its borders until it was provoked by the West's effort to encroach upon Russian borders via NATO expansion. If NATO had kept its promise made in 1990 not to expand, this war would not have taken place. NATO's behavior since the fall of the USSR has been anything but defensive, proving that it was founded upon offensive objectives.
Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada on the same premises, the US threatened ww3 in the Cuban crisis on the same premises. The invasion of Iraq ,Lybia and other place in the last decades are on even more dishonest premises. I have no support for Putin nor Russia but the level of hypocrisy displayed in the west is baffling. What Putin succeeded with this is to make it harder for a unipolar world to keep existing next time the drum of war will beat on media I hope that it get harder for those that have condemned Russia to pull of the bs out of their playbook. No one as a God given right to bully the rest of the world without being challenged.
Nato was created to bully and destroy the ussr. It was the original threat. It wasn’t created to oppose an actual threat, but only to destroy the economic enemies of the west. It is an arm of western capitalism.
Let us be clear in regard to the Russian/Ukrainian war: The relationship between Russia and Ukraine became, in the time of the Soviet Union, a marriage of convenience not of love. When the USSR broke up, in a time of weakness the ruling elites of both nations put up with each other. But when Russia became stronger and a divorce became inevitable, Russia did not want to split the house and the kids so now to forcibly settle the issue its way, it terrorizes the wife and her kids and makes their lives unbearable and even desires to kill her and her kids. This is the mindset of the Russian elite and for this reason they are now treating Ukrainians like rats, taking away from them the necessities of life. My strong wish is that the Russian population will not support their elite in these awful crimes and will find the courage to oppose those that have brought so much suffering to the Ukrainian population and to a lesser extent the Russian population as well. Russia could live very well without any of the acquired Ukrainian territories. The greater weapon needed right now is against a prideful and hateful Russian elite and the portion of the population that supports them. This weapon can only come from Russian people of common sense, Russian people of integrity, and Russian people who truly love God who with courage show their opposition to the Russian elite who has misled them. Many of the Russian media members should be ashamed of the statements they have allowed themselves to make and repeat. In their conversations they have put God aside and for this cause they have become foolish.
@@saccount-z3 he spilled same shit westerners say when they try to "buy" you with sweet words. And they play us everytime. That's just who they are. There is a saying, everytime west tries to silence somebody, in most cases, he is doing something right.
I am greatly enjoying your work to think, analyze and understand the situation critically. I would like to give my understanding of Russian thinking in this regard, this is not meant to justify the action, it is meant to achieve a thorough understand of their standpoint. To correctly understand Russian thinking regarding this issue I would believe that the Alexander Dugin's concept of ethnos is of crucial importance. Russians do not understand countries the way you defined them. Dugin's philosophy is based on Martin Heidegger's notion of Dasein and connects it with his notion of Volk (the people). A country is a sacred soil of the Volk (the people). I am inferring by your speech and endeavor that you are American. Americans as a people and culture have no soil, not in the material sense, this of course they do, but in the sacred ethnical sense, they do not. The soil they live on belongs to the Native Americans in the sacred sense. This notion of sacred soil is crucial in understanding the justification Russians have for themselves to purse these military goals. Sacred soil with the sacred religion (orthodox church) with sacred people and the sacred ruler (the Tsar), that is how they understand their identity. This sacredness should not be understood in the secular protestant way as is commonly understood in the Anglo-American cultural context. This sacredness should be understood in the sense of a belonging to a cultural-historical context, in the sense of Heidegger's Dasein. The eastern part of Ukraine is orthodox in the cultural-historical sense and therefore, from the Russian standpoint belongs under the sacred soil of Russia. I would recommend looking into the ideas of Dostoyevsky's character Shatov in his work the Demons to understand this better. Finally, the basic geopolitical textbook was written by Alexander Dugin and is used in most Russian military circles for education. The Russian geopolitical philosophy is based on Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. Their goal is to achieve a multipolar geopolitical world as opposed to a unipolar world of the West, they believe the correct poles are those that Huntington defined in his book. Some might understand this as a form of Orthodox fundamentalism (similar to Islamic fundamentalism), which I will not judge on, but I think that if the Russian's secularized their worldview as the far West protestant worldview they would believe to not be Russians anymore, I think that the essence of what they believe to be an existential threat. Existential threat in the sense of Dostoyevsky's Orthodox existentialism.
But that's the ideological view, there's the material view which is vastly different, what guides Russian interest is the Russian oligarchy, some points of the video weren't that accurate, indeed the first two justifications were just to gather favourable public opinion, but the third one... Well, lacks the knowledge of the Minsk accords, which Merkel herself acknowledge they weren't respected and the US used to gather time, also the cable leaks by the WikiLeaks showing Nuland raging against the EU, the stages Maidan protests, the IMF involvement, there are a lot of things that aren't said, but it could be research to understand what really went on, and the truth is the Russian oligarchs are trying to negate resources and trivial infrastructure to their western counterparts, which themselves are trying to earn a quick buck without losing man of their own to provoke another outcry of another lost war, they rather "fight to the last Ukrainian", since they won't fight anyway, in the end is like the mafia says: "just business"
@@Rrgr5 Both of you make great points to understand the Russian ideological explanation for the invasion, although a deeply flawed narrative. My question is, do we ultimately need to understand Russia's aggression? Does a person need to understand a robber that has broken into one's house? Did the Western allies need to understand Nazi Germany view of Liebestraum? Ukrainian sovereignty is the beginning and the end of the discussion. The rest is just mental gymnastics.
@@bernardzsikla5640 yes we need to prevent it, is that difficult to understand? Why you think we study history? Your abstractions don't really add up here, that kind of discourse looks more like a gaslight than anything.
@@Rrgr5 Interesting, you had such a thoughtful explanation and understanding of Russian ideology and your reply devolved into just a silly comment. Ultimately, we don't need to understand Authoritarianism. We need to defend against it. And again you mentioning gaslighting, you might want to Google the term. Your original lengthy explanation of Russian ideology is more of a gaslighting apologist mentality than anything I had stated.
The days of marching into a country and saying "this land is ours now and if you don't like it we are going to fight for it" are long gone now. Putin is 100% wrong. Just let the Ukrainians live in peace.
The ukraine scenario is closer to ireland than the usa. Also russia published their views on a new pan-european security architecture, they were ignored and the media dismissed russian concerns. In return for withdrawal & dissolution of ussr, certain conditions that were promised by the west were broken. We know this based on declassified files, biographies & transcripts.
The broken promise that is being vaguely referred to were comments made in 1990 by US Secretary of State James Baker. Baker had specifically promised the Soviets that NATO would move “not one inch eastward”. However, this was never codified in any treaty or agreement that came as a result of the talks this statement was included in, and the USSR collapsed shortly after, completely changing the security situation that the talks were about in the first place. As it stands, there is no binding promise/agreement that prevents NATO from allowing countries east of Germany to apply and join. Putin knows this. It’s nothing but rhetoric to gain sympathy for his unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine. Don’t fall for it.
Also, the Soviets never agreed to dissolve. The Warsaw pact countries left the pack after the USSR demonstrated it wouldn’t stop them. On the other hand, the republics making up the union took the opportunity of Russian weakness to get themselves out from under the thumb of Moscow, and each declared independence. It turns out authoritarianism isn’t popular with the people that are suppressed by it.
@@bkc7890 Thanks for sharing that info but what about Russia's security irrespective of whether that promise was never officially ratified. Doesn't Russia have a legitimate case to be made regarding Ukraine being allied with the West and showing no commitment to not ease up its attacks on the separatists? How could this not be a serious concern that Russia is being forced to confront?
@@LouisGedo The separatists are propped up by Russia and don’t have nearly enough local support to survive on their own. They would have been crushed in 2014, when the Ukrainian military was practically nothing, without Russian intervention. As for promises made, the administration who made that uncodified promise is no longer in power, meaning the promise doesn’t exist between the US and Russia. Also, it was the Soviets that the promise was made to technically, not the Russian federation, so another degree of separation. An actual treaty with that promise in it would have made it a justifiable argument, but since it was not a formal agreement, there is no responsibility to hold it up. As for actual broken promises and formal agreements, the Russian Federation signed the Budapest memorandum in which they agreed, in exchange for Ukraine giving up their nuclear arms, that they would guarantee Ukrainian sovereign territory as it was. Fast forward to 2014, they’re annexing crimea and propping up separatists because they disagree with the direction Ukraine wants to go. Fast forward to 2022, they are invading the rest of Ukraine.
I agree on you on the first two points. But in the last segment you said “they would first need to exhaust their diplomatic solutions.” I’m not sure if you know but the Russians had negotiated with NATO over 10 times to not spread their influence further east. You also state that “the world wanted Putin to negotiate” he did. Read about the Minsk agreement. In the first month of the war, Russia and Ukraine sent diplomats to Turkey to reach an agreement, they had concluded in the neutrality of Ukraine… Boris Johnson PM of UK told Zelenskyy to break off ALL DIPLOMATIC SOLUTIONS and then the war progressed. You clearly didn’t read enough about the topic, you would have known that there already was an agreement that was destroyed by a NATO member… hope you inform yourself a little better next time
Why should Ukraine seek peace with Russia after Russia had invaded? Why do you think Russia is even interested in peace? It just hit a children's hospital with cruise missiles yesterday. That's not an accident. Ukraine has no choice but to fight this war. It's being attacked every single day for the 29 months
I understand you were focusing on Putin's own writings and speeches on the matter but two worthwhile things come to mind. First is that NATO wanted this war. There was an American think thank that did a rather simple calculation. If we play tough on Ukraine either A) Putin backs down and looks weak at home and abroad or B) he invades and we use that as a pretext to bleed and ruin Russia. It is a win-win from a US standpoint, if one does not care about Ukranian blood. And clearly they don't since they ignored all Russian calls for a binding agreement despite their intelligence being correct for once that war was imminent. Second is how Russia from even before Russia was an independent country was opposed to the expansion of NATO. Which duh, but the thing is the Westerners promised Gorbachev they would not even militarize East Germany let alone more. Refusing to unequivocally say no to expansion into Ukraine was like two steps beyond the red line (even admitting the Baltics was extremely provocative really).
First, I don't think US foreign policy wants to "ruin" Russia. It would bring too much uncertainty with nuclear arms - negotiating with too many states or failed state makes things more complex not less. They would rather make it weaker economically to keep its aggression in check. Second, regarding expansion - Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, former USSR satellite state, are already in NATO and in very close proximity to Moscow and St Petersburg, some of them even share border with Russia. So Kremlin's pretext here that Ukraine joining Nato would make existential threat to Russia is overly exaggerated. NATO's missile defense systems if placed are meant to intercept attacking missiles and not designed for offensive purposes. Now regarding promises - Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994 as part of Budapest memorandum, which Russia signed, in return for security guaranties - and now this promise got broken. Finally, if you look at the situation holistically and from historical context, establishing of separatist regions like South Ossetia, Transnistria, DNR, LNR and bullying of Georgia and other states around Russian "sphere of influence" have one in common - large Russian speaking population within those countries. There is complete disregard for human capital in those operations, bringing "Russkiy Mir" only brought more misery to the places. The whole purpose of those proxy states is to destabilize the countries and prevent their liberalization, and establishing rule of law within those countries which would pave a way for prosperity for their nations. Kremlin is afraid that if a neighboring country successfully liberalized and prosperous this would set a precedent for Russians population. This would put existential threat to the Kremlin's regime and they would loose power.
@@cleverparmesan4793 I agree that trying to ruin Russia should not be part of the American agenda, but it is. These sanctions and anti-Russian hysteria will really harm Russia. And more critically push it towards China as a junior partner. China still has a lot to gain from Russia in terms of military tech and ofc raw resources. So what the US is doing is crippling their secondary rival which will bolster their primary rival, aka a mistake. Furthermore I already said admitting the Baltic countries was a mistake. We are lucky the Russians were so permissive at the time. I'd call it grounds for war if I was them frankly. But now it's a fait acompli so it's tolerated, barely. I don't think there are missiles there and hopefully there won't be. Prefect defense equals perfect offense, and Russians know it too. It is possible, probable even, that Russia likes having these breakaway regions to have a finger in the pie of other counties. But there are Russians living there, a majority usually so they do have some right to meddle. And those places can jettison those pro-Russian regions but they prefer to keep them at the cost of this supposed great desire to become American servants.
@@cleverparmesan4793 Ukraines nuclear weapons were Soviet weapons as if they would just give them to Ukraine after they left. NATO expansion to entirely encircle Russia is an existential threat - no other way of looking at it and to say it is defensive is completely disingenuous. Also it certainly is US policy to" Bleed" Russia with sanctions and any other way possible just as it is to regime change both Russia and China. Both Russia and China know this and have prepared. The US is so blinded by hubris or fear of losing hegemonic power it has overplayed its hand and will now suffer the consequences. You need to wake up - the US is a world wide dictatorship that feels it has the right to invade countries at will, sanction them, destabilise and organise coups. The majority of the planet has had enough and is moving on with new alliances and a fair world order
Saying that NATO wanted this war is on its face ridiculous, even speculating about it with the reason that they "want to bleed and ruin Russia" is nonsensical. Why on earth would NATO (a defensive alliance), want to destabilize one of, if not THE biggest nuclear power on the planet? Adding on that "NATO" does not care about Ukrainian blood, while they are the ones (along with over half the world) actively trying to help both Ukrainian civilians and the state with all necessary supplies, taking in refugees and even going so far as to give all available benefits to said civilians is probably the dumbest thing you wrote in your little comment. Russia is opposed to the expansion of NATO, because they cannot fuck with any nation that is in NATO. They destroyed Chechnya, created puppet "breakaway states" in Moldavia, Ukraine and Georgia (and invaded the latter two) precisely because they are NOT in NATO. The only threat to Russia is that they cannot ruthlessly "expand" the "Russkiy Mir" to countries that are in NATO. "Westerners" promised the USSR that they would not expand NATO infrastructure to East Germany if Gorbachev allowed the reunification of Germany, they never promised not to expand NATO to anyone, let alone Russia. Even Gorbachev himself has stated this multiple times in both interviews and in books. The "red line" toted by a middling regional power to restrict European countries sovereign rights to join defensive alliances is a joke, a bad one at that. "You can't join the club against bullying!!! Thats my red line, because I can't bully and beat you up if you do!"
@@tehcookie2417 I have no time to waste on an overly nationalistic fool who doesn't understand the basics of geopolitics. I hope nuclear fire will keep you as warm as this blatant Western propaganda you've chugged down. Because behind the bravado that is what is being played with here, annihilation. And if it comes to that what will those counties that joined NATO gain? My country at least has a reasonable chance to avoid the bombs less so them, and you.
I've seen your video just now, and I'd like to point out the oddness of "Civil war" part, as there were not civil war in Ukraine between "east" and "west" of Ukraine, at least not since 1991. I also think it to be worth mentioning that the war between russia and Ukraine started in 2014, yet it is 2024 when Ukraine faced the full invasion of its territories. Giving that russia invaded Ukraine much earlier, those reasons to invade Ukraine back then might also be worth taking into consideration ( I do not mean to say they are justified). Anyhow, it was a nice try and though having quite a rough view on what was going on in Ukraine, the conclusion is the same - russia's aggression is not justified.
Generally, I appreciate the effort put into this video. However, I believe you have missed some critical aspects. For argument 1), you have confused the Soviet Union with Russia. While Russia was a major player in the USSR, not all of their leaders were even ethnically Russian, but other nationalities. Stalin was Georgian, Lenin was a true product of Russian multiculturalism and had a mixed background, Malenkov was Macedonian in addition to Russian, Krushchov was not born in Ukraine but was absolutely obsessed with Ukraine and practically was Ukrainian, Brezhnev claimed to be Ukrainian, but it’s a tough call. Gorbachev was Ukrainian-Russian-Jewish, Andropov is unclear, and so is Chernenko. Even with all that being the case, Ukrainian, modern Russian, and Belarusian identities are still forming, and prior to the Soviet Union, the Russian empire encapsulated these various identities (and the Soviet Union continued to do so). We can’t really say that modern Russia is the the same country as the USSR…at all. Putin said Ukraine’s formation was a mistake, but it was not a Russian mistake, but a Soviet mistake. Big difference honestly. He also did not say and has never said that he is considering removing or halting Ukraine’s independence. There is no evidence to suggest that Russia plans for expansion and/or is acting to take over, occupy, or control Ukraine, but of course they are offering to protect and take back Donbas land for the DPR and LPR, and as the situation unfolds, we will see what happens with Kherson and some other areas that wish to depart from Ukraine. As for Crimea, which you didn’t talk about much, the 2014 referendum is a near identical vote to basically the same decision in the 90s. Overwhelming majority (over 90%) of Crimeans with over 90% voter turnout decided they wanted independence from Ukraine as part of Gorbachev’s Union Treaty. Ukraine illegally vetoed the referendum after the U.S. pressured the Ukrainian government, claiming that Russia could not have access to the Black Sea. If the US had not interfered in the 90s, Crimea would have left Ukraine decades ago. The same result occurred in this 2014 referendum - pretty clear that Crimea does not want to be part of Ukraine. My home town has a sister city in Crimea and everyone who has visited says the people consider themselves overwhelmingly Russian, not Ukrainian. Not a single person was killed in the 2014 transfer of Crimea…there were no deaths. For part 2), while you could argue the semantics of genocide regarding Odessa, Ukraine’s continued bombing and serious violations of seize fires for 8 years in the Donbas could certainly constitute genocide. After the 2014 Maiden coup, the very first law passed by the new “government” was the banning of the Russian language in all public sector work. It’s quite terrifying. In fact, the DPR and LPR referendums were not for independence from Ukraine, but for autonomy within Ukraine…but despite this, Ukrainian government spearheaded by neo nazi battalions began the Anti Terror Campaign and began the assault on the Donbas, where cluster ammunition has killed civilians. Over 14,000 people on both sides (all pretty much Ukrainian citizens, mind you), have died since 2014. France and Germany signed a declaration agreeing to force Ukraine to uphold the Minsk Accord, but when Ukraine continued shelling of civilians, neither country did anything. Russian Parliament had been begging Putin to recognize the DPR and LPR and he was very hesitant to do so. In fact, he rejected the Parliament’s call for recognition of the territories in February 2022, and only finally recognized when shelling was continued during negotiations. You say that Ukraine’s aggression does not warrant invasion, but I beg to differ. Someone needs to stop the death of innocent people. It’s not okay to let people die for no reason other than their ethnicity, language, and belief. There is so much more to this than most people are aware of, and while again, I appreciate your video as one of the least inflammatory, I believe you are missing a lot of context and information which is absolutely critical to this situation. Ukraine’s policies of executing politicians, Western European and U.S. role in 2014 Euromaiden, CIA training program of Azov battalion, etc. all add to to the fire. It’s a horrible situation and it’s even more horrible that this has turned into a good vs evil paradigm. I highly recommend anyone interested in Russian relations to read Creating Russophobia: From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria by Guy Mettan. I also recommend the following article by independent French Think tank: cf2r.org/documentation/la-situation-militaire-en-ukraine/ It is written by an ex-NATO official. Anyway, thanks for the video - it at least sparks some more standard discussion of the topic.
Why did the ukrainian government start shelling its own people? Wasn't it a contermeasure against russian separatism? why didn't you include that in your little essay?
@wrijin I agree completely. In Denmark we have zero political will to acknowledge these matters, but they are very relevant in any decent objective analysis.
You know Russia has (according to the United Nations) destroyed or, quote, ‘damaged beyond repair’ roughly _80-95%_ of all the buildings in the city of Mariupol? Within the first three months of the war? That was a city with a pre-war population greater than 39/50 U.S _state capitals._ And it’s just fucking gone. It got Dresden’d. It got Hamburg’d. Berlin’d, Warsaw’d, Stalingrad’d, Rotterdam’d, fucking _Hiroshima’d._ It’s just gone. Over 200 schools were hit within the first _three months_ of the war. The United Nations estimates over _10,000 cases of rape._ Civilian casualties likely exceed the amount of people that have died in fucking _Gaza,_ for goodness sake. We have _dozens_ of cases, all spread out, of Russian soldiers firing upon civilian vehicles. Kharkiv has been struck with over a _dozen_ missile strikes _every single day_ for over a _year_ now, almost all of which go on to strike purely civilian targets. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of the 4th of April, 2024, Russia has bombed roughly ~1,682 hospitals and healthcare facilities in Ukraine. Over _1,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities._ Like, holy fucking shit. Ukrainian POWs are being released severely malnourished and mistreated. I watched a video of over a hundred Ukrainian POWs exiting a bus after finally arriving back in Ukraine following a prisoner swap, and I do not exaggerate when I say that every single one of them looked like they just walked out of fucking _Auschwitz._ I’m serious. I actually went and compared real photos of Auschwitz prisoners out of disbelief, and I’m dead serious when I say they looked almost identical. Russia has been deliberately targeting energy infrastructure throughout the winter, and almost every single fucking day they hit another apartment complex. The global community overwhelmingly agrees they have been, and currently are, targeting highway intersections at rush hour. They are also being tried for simply fighting- which is a war crime. So is driving around in vehicles marked as ambulances, but we have photos of Russia doing that. We have Ukrainian civilians being forced to wear Russian uniforms so they get shot at by Ukrainian troops while they dig mass graves to put the bodies of _other_ Ukrainian civilians who died being forced to dig trenches. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and deported to what are literally called ‘re-education’ camps within Russia- hastily made prisons built out of former convention centres, and the like. There are dozens of reports of them being forced to listen to the Russian national anthem on repeat, being forbidden to speak Ukrainian, being told their parents abandoned them, etc. Do you not know just how many people… children, even… report not just witnessing torture take place, but _being_ tortured, personally? The sheer rate of human right abuses in these ‘re-education camps’ is actually fucking unfathonable. There are _dozens,_ fucking _dozens_ of cases of them launching missiles at civilian structures, and then launching a _second_ missile roughly 30 minutes after. All the time. Over and over and over again. This is clearly an attempt to kill firefighters and medical workers- it’s called a ‘double-tap’ strike. Torture chambers are found en-masse wherever Ukraine liberates territory. I know of videos of fucking _children,_ crying, while confessing to having been tortured there. Apparently, the torture rooms for _children_ are just the same as the others… with the exception that they have _carpet._ That’s the difference. I remember reading testimony (from a fucking _child,_ my god), about a guy he saw hanging from the ceiling, suspended by hooks in his body, with blood pooling half an inch deep on the floor. We have mass graves filled with literally hundreds of civilian bodies, many with their hands bound, being found in liberated territories. Bucha wasn’t the only massacre… it’s just the most well-known. Every other day we detect a new one that wasn’t there yesterday suddenly appearing in the occupied territories- ominously filled in holes in church yards and stuff. We see them appear on satellite feed. How do you explain a hole in the ground filled with 500 dead civilians… curiously, where 95% of which were women? Ages ranged from 80 year old grandmas to 6 year old girls. I’ve literally seen fucking photos of it. There are videos, made by Russian soldiers, of them openly laughing about the war crimes they have committed. We have leaked footage of a Russian teleconference call literally discussing the logistics of kidnapping children. Russian state-owned media regularly features people openly advocating for the deliberate murder of literally millions of Ukrainians. I remember one clip I watched of someone suggesting Russian soldiers systematically drown Ukrainian children in the Dnipro river. Putin literally denies the existence of a Ukrainian identity. An article was published exactly 48 hours after the start of the war, on the dot, by Russian state-owned media. It called for, quote, the ‘liquidation’ of the Ukrainian leadership; referred to, quote, the ‘Ukrainian Question’ (sound familiar?); and celebrated the assimilation and obliteration of Ukrainian culture. An exact quote is ‘did the old fools at Berlin and Paris think Kyiv would forever remain out of Russian hands? That the Russians would forever remain a divided people?’. Said article was taken down a few hours later, so clearly it was leaked by accident. Thankfully, it’s available on the Internet archive. It also talked about Ukraine in past-tense, so it was likely published automatically, and intended to as a celebration for when Russia conquered Ukraine, which explains the to-the-minute perfect timing. It also just goes to show they really did intend to conquer Ukraine in mere days. Which makes sense, we found parade uniforms in the 60 kilometer long tank column that rode in a straight line directly towards Kyiv from the minute the war began, after all. You know, the one Ukraine blunted entirely? We have over a dozen instances of Ukrainian soldiers being castrated- one of them was caught on video, for the love of god. There is literally a fucking example of Ukrainian civilians being murdered in a literally fucking gas chamber by a Russian general. But it’s just the one example, so no biggie, right? There were photos that surfaced of a Ukrainian soldier, whose head was _fucking decapitated and impaled upon a stick_ outside of Bakhmut. They literally _directly_ struck a tiny, 5x5 meter large _Holocaust Memorial,_ in the middle of an empty field, with no other buildings of any kind around for _ten miles._ It was just a small circle with a statue in the middle, dedicated to a massacre that occurred in that very field, miles away from civilization. It was less than five meters wide, and yet the _very top of the statue_ was _directly_ struck by a _precision guided missile,_ blowing it to pieces. A fucking _Holocaust Memorial._ What does all that tell you?
@@whatslifespurpose so long as Angelic Putin isn’t planning an ethic cleansing or persisting with violence in contravention of UN authority, yep, defensive.
Libya was mostly a Franco-British job, just like Iraq was a mostly Anglo-American job. Other NATO members were not necessarily involved. Belgrade is inexcusable, however.
On the subject of whether Putin has a good reason or not , let's say that when Iraq was invaded by the allied forces on false pretenses by Colin Powell (that will follow me to the grave), killing half a million iraqi soldiers right there on fabricated reasons, that also opened the Pandora's box that any reason will do as long as you're the king of the jungle. The 3 kings of the jungle who control the nuclear strike from any place in any shape of form happen to be the US, Russia and China. Keep that in mind when dealing with a world with an opened Pandora's box !!!! If u've never heard of Nira's testimony, here's a link . ruclips.net/video/FOjGN9TGgRo/видео.html
@@floydwhatchacallit6823 If Russia was able to influence Cuba to allow the russians to install hypersonic missiles on the island, would the US just sit back and watch thinking well, last time we invaded Afghanistan or Vietnam, it didn't work out very well for us and we'll just wait and see if the russians have the balls to do that. Or switch Cuba for Mexico and you get the idea of why Russians had to invade Ukraine. THat's when you understand the meaning of unspoken red lines. eg Taiwan is another red line. Red lines are emotional issues and has nothing to do with logical outcomes. Do you think Mexico or Cuba is a red line for the US ?
@@tomassterancak That's not entirely true: many European countries said something against US reasoning for this war. Like France and Germany for example. They also refused to join the US in this invasion. The US started this war without their approval and support and without NATO. Remember, only the US and UK went through with this. But it was impossible for the ones who resisted the US call for arms, to debunk the faked material and falsified "evidence" by the US, because they rely on the same intelligence reports through NATO structures. Own reports were sparse but already draw a different picture, compared to what the US claimed. The second most reliable source of intel in this region is coming from the UK. And they backed the US in everything. There is no way to impose sanctions on the US, an ally and friend of most western nations, when you're lacking any hard evidence against their claims. The result was only visible after the war was ended and the supposed bases and factories were obviously never there. At least the US didn't try to fake stuff at this point. Putin himself said, that he would have done so, if he was in the US position instead. The real scandal here is, that the US was never judged for this. The UN should have brought judgment over their wrong actions here. They never paid reparations and the responsible people are still free, instead of being thrown in jail.
So why does our country the USA need to be involved? I guess we are the benevolent big force that can stand up to Putin when he is feeling threatened and goes on the attack of a sovereign country. They need help. Who else will help? Where is NATO in all this?
War of 1812 was started by the USA, not the UK. Various hawks and expansionists thought it would be a good opportunity to take Canada while Britain was occupied with Napoleon, plus they were annoyed at the Royal Navy's impressment of American sailors captured at sea, which is reasonable. Britain responded but not with much force as it couldn't spare them from Europe; instead the conflict was the making of Canada as local militias in conjunction with Native groups responded more decisively to the threat.
I think you're not correctly evaluating the "opportunity for negotiation" that Putin had. He warned, in 2007, that the red line would be Georgia and Ukraine. from back then until this very year the west and Russia has been manipulating Ukraine's politics. I mean there is a record of Hilary Clinton literally choosing who's going to be minister of what in Ukraine, like " no I don't like that guy because (whatever), I prefer that guy " and so on. That's when Putin triggered the low key war that had been playing until the full on invasion. But we kept pushing for years and somehow Russia grew tired of us not listening to the "please stop expanding NATO" demands. Putin is the one that invaded but we clearly pushed them to do so. It is amazing how we continuously fail to see our faults up to a point where it's pathetic. But the real problem is that it makes sure that we'll fight until the last Ukrainian.
You know Russia has (according to the United Nations) destroyed or, quote, ‘damaged beyond repair’ roughly _80-95%_ of all the buildings in the city of Mariupol? Within the first three months of the war? That was a city with a pre-war population greater than 39/50 U.S _state capitals._ And it’s just fucking gone. It got Dresden’d. It got Hamburg’d. Berlin’d, Warsaw’d, Stalingrad’d, Rotterdam’d, fucking _Hiroshima’d._ It’s just gone. Over 200 schools were hit within the first _three months_ of the war. The United Nations estimates over _10,000 cases of rape._ Civilian casualties likely exceed the amount of people that have died in fucking _Gaza,_ for goodness sake. We have _dozens_ of cases, all spread out, of Russian soldiers firing upon civilian vehicles. Kharkiv has been struck with over a _dozen_ missile strikes _every single day_ for over a _year_ now, almost all of which go on to strike purely civilian targets. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of the 4th of April, 2024, Russia has bombed roughly ~1,682 hospitals and healthcare facilities in Ukraine. Over _1,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities._ Like, holy fucking shit. Ukrainian POWs are being released severely malnourished and mistreated. I watched a video of over a hundred Ukrainian POWs exiting a bus after finally arriving back in Ukraine following a prisoner swap, and I do not exaggerate when I say that every single one of them looked like they just walked out of fucking _Auschwitz._ I’m serious. I actually went and compared real photos of Auschwitz prisoners out of disbelief, and I’m dead serious when I say they looked almost identical. Russia has been deliberately targeting energy infrastructure throughout the winter, and almost every single fucking day they hit another apartment complex. The global community overwhelmingly agrees they have been, and currently are, targeting highway intersections at rush hour. They are also being tried for simply fighting- which is a war crime. So is driving around in vehicles marked as ambulances, but we have photos of Russia doing that. We have Ukrainian civilians being forced to wear Russian uniforms so they get shot at by Ukrainian troops while they dig mass graves to put the bodies of _other_ Ukrainian civilians who died being forced to dig trenches. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and deported to what are literally called ‘re-education’ camps within Russia- hastily made prisons built out of former convention centres, and the like. There are dozens of reports of them being forced to listen to the Russian national anthem on repeat, being forbidden to speak Ukrainian, being told their parents abandoned them, etc. Do you not know just how many people… children, even… report not just witnessing torture take place, but _being_ tortured, personally? The sheer rate of human right abuses in these ‘re-education camps’ is actually fucking unfathonable. There are _dozens,_ fucking _dozens_ of cases of them launching missiles at civilian structures, and then launching a _second_ missile roughly 30 minutes after. All the time. Over and over and over again. This is clearly an attempt to kill firefighters and medical workers- it’s called a ‘double-tap’ strike. Torture chambers are found en-masse wherever Ukraine liberates territory. I know of videos of fucking _children,_ crying, while confessing to having been tortured there. Apparently, the torture rooms for _children_ are just the same as the others… with the exception that they have _carpet._ That’s the difference. I remember reading testimony (from a fucking _child,_ my god), about a guy he saw hanging from the ceiling, suspended by hooks in his body, with blood pooling half an inch deep on the floor. We have mass graves filled with literally hundreds of civilian bodies, many with their hands bound, being found in liberated territories. Bucha wasn’t the only massacre… it’s just the most well-known. Every other day we detect a new one that wasn’t there yesterday suddenly appearing in the occupied territories- ominously filled in holes in church yards and stuff. We see them appear on satellite feed. How do you explain a hole in the ground filled with 500 dead civilians… curiously, where 95% of which were women? Ages ranged from 80 year old grandmas to 6 year old girls. I’ve literally seen fucking photos of it. There are videos, made by Russian soldiers, of them openly laughing about the war crimes they have committed. We have leaked footage of a Russian teleconference call literally discussing the logistics of kidnapping children. Russian state-owned media regularly features people openly advocating for the deliberate murder of literally millions of Ukrainians. I remember one clip I watched of someone suggesting Russian soldiers systematically drown Ukrainian children in the Dnipro river. Putin literally denies the existence of a Ukrainian identity. An article was published exactly 48 hours after the start of the war, on the dot, by Russian state-owned media. It called for, quote, the ‘liquidation’ of the Ukrainian leadership; referred to, quote, the ‘Ukrainian Question’ (sound familiar?); and celebrated the assimilation and obliteration of Ukrainian culture. An exact quote is ‘did the old fools at Berlin and Paris think Kyiv would forever remain out of Russian hands? That the Russians would forever remain a divided people?’. Said article was taken down a few hours later, so clearly it was leaked by accident. Thankfully, it’s available on the Internet archive. It also talked about Ukraine in past-tense, so it was likely published automatically, and intended to as a celebration for when Russia conquered Ukraine, which explains the to-the-minute perfect timing. It also just goes to show they really did intend to conquer Ukraine in mere days. Which makes sense, we found parade uniforms in the 60 kilometer long tank column that rode in a straight line directly towards Kyiv from the minute the war began, after all. You know, the one Ukraine blunted entirely? We have over a dozen instances of Ukrainian soldiers being castrated- one of them was caught on video, for the love of god. There is literally a fucking example of Ukrainian civilians being murdered in a literally fucking gas chamber by a Russian general. But it’s just the one example, so no biggie, right? There were photos that surfaced of a Ukrainian soldier, whose head was _fucking decapitated and impaled upon a stick_ outside of Bakhmut. They literally _directly_ struck a tiny, 5x5 meter large _Holocaust Memorial,_ in the middle of an empty field, with no other buildings of any kind around for _ten miles._ It was just a small circle with a statue in the middle, dedicated to a massacre that occurred in that very field, miles away from civilization. It was less than five meters wide, and yet the _very top of the statue_ was _directly_ struck by a _precision guided missile,_ blowing it to pieces. A fucking _Holocaust Memorial._ What does all that tell you?
quick question "Where on earth do these logics go when Israel is being questioned?" You can question every religion(blasphemy), ideology(shraiah laws), people(American presidents), country (Russia) but its absolutely horrendous when u start to question Israel.
No it's not. It's probably the most criticised country after the US. And Islam is basically not part of public discourse or questioned, at least in western countries, because they think pointing out the obvious flaws of it would be racist.
Even a smart guy like him can get hoodwinked by fake news. He is wtong from 7min For the real facts The Grayzone with Aaron Mate The New Atlas by Brian Berletic John Mearsheimer (watch him first) Patrick Lancaster war journo in Donbass utube(his vids are difficult to watch) Graham Phillips in Donbadd George Galloway I wiill try to pist sone links in next comment but most if nit all will be deleted by waartube
NO. Russian psychological insecurity does not justify invading surrounding countries to gain defensive geography. No one is invading Russia. Russia has poor performance record improving wherever they invade.
To your (or Putin's) first point, that Ukraine is a historical mistake... If Ukraine did not become such a nuisance to Russia (or should we say Russian power elites) in the past 20-30 years then Russia cold have very well overlooked this historical "mistake". Putin's claim to Ukraine as a historical mistake is just one of many justifications. Had Ukraine not been flirting with NATO and the West, Russia could have easily co-existed with the said historical "mistake". It was just too dangerous (politically speaking) for Russia's power elites, to have such a huge territory to its South Western border that is essentially antagonistic to Russia's ruling elites. Even Crimea would remain Ukrainian had Ukraine not have the Maidan revolution and threatened to cancel Russia's Black Sea Naval fleet leasing agreement.
pretty good video. I do believe it's important to articulate precisely why Russia is in the wrong, rather than concluding that instinctively. hoverever, there are a few corrections I'd like to make: 1) there was no civil war in Ukraine. a certain part of the population used to be pro-Russian, and some of them joined up with Russian invaders - but that's it. mere presense of collaborators and turncoats does not make them into full-fledged side of the conflict. those so-called seperatists never existed outside of Russian command structure. 2) NATO can't expand unless Russia threatens its neighbors - case in point, Sweden and Finland decided to join only after seeing what Russia did to Ukraine. meanwhile, Ukraine would've never been accepted into NATO while having unresolved terriotrial disputes over Crimea and Donbass (not to mention that Ukraine itself only started moving into the direction of joining NATO because of the Russian threat). therefore, Russia's NATO argument is based on circumstances that they themselves caused, thus it's not a valid justification for war, just like their other arguments.
Wow, the third argument can actually draw parallels to the Cuban Missile Crisis! If the US had violently invaded Cuba as a resolution that crisis, it would have been the same thing as what Russia is doing now. Back then, we accused Russia of threatening our national security.
I don't agree with Russia invading Ukraine. But, if is true that the NATO didn't take Russia seriously until they started mobilizing their army... I think that we have an important issue on global diplomacy.
I'm a Ukrainian from Donbas, east of Ukraine. I appreciate your efforts made for this video and the points mentioned. I also want to quickly say in regards of this map: 4:05. It doesn't show a divide between Ukrainians, nor it shows even divide between the east ond the west of Ukraine. It's just a picture published by somebody on Russian social media which roughly shows Ukrainians speaking Russian language VS Ukrainians speaking Ukrainian. While language never stops to be a big part of the debates within Ukraine, it was never such a big issue to start a war within. What happened is the other Russian invasion which they covered as a "civil war" proclaiming that they are doing that to save the "Russian speaking people", me including. While being born in Donetsk region, I fluently spoke Ukrainian and Russian (the second was used more frequently as my region has been under Russian rulership for a very long time before we gained independence). That being said, I was never ever oppressed just because of the language I spoke. Russia exaggerated the "language issue" to absurdity just so they could invade us in 2014 (adding some other stupid "reasons" on the fly). I still remember those weird people with different accent of Russian walking around the streets of my city with weapons that year. Nobody could understand what was going on. It never felt like a civil war no matter how hard Russians tried to create an image of such on their media. I literally want to vomit every time somebody says that was a civil war
But the majority voted for seperation from ukraine. I dont know if same could ve said for jews or tartar etc others who did not have stake in the situation.
30 years of constant brainwashing is taking it's tall...First of all, not Russia exaggerated the "language issue" to absurdity in order to invade you in 2014, but the US-Puppepts in Kiev when they had their first illegal(unconstitutional) meeting after the Coup in Kiev organised & paid by the CIA & carried out by NAZIS (Radical Ethnic-Chauvinists & Ukro-Supremacists) their first wish was to forbid the Russian language in Ukraine, which the CIA-Puppet Tourchinov vetoed against, but it was still pushed through by the pathetic beggars, liars & assholes Poroshenko & Zelensky in 2019 & 2021 meaning that the ethnic Russians in the Ukraine didn't have the same legal rights as the rest of the population. The Ukrainian "Elites" being not the most sincere or intelligent people in the Post-Soviet Realm, even invented a bullshit category of "Native Ethnicities" for the Ukraine of which of course Russians were excluded..The Russian Language when used by authorities & institutions personell as in media & publications is illegal, although 16 000 000(including 9 000 000 ethnic Russians) Ukros have declared it as their native tong...One can publish a book in pure Portuguese or Catalan in the Ukraine but not in Russian without adding a state-approved & legalised translation...We in Western Europe BTW call such a thing APARTHEID, how are you calling it? What you wanted to quickly say in regards of this map: 4:05 is Bullshit, it's not some map posted by a random Russian guy, but the map of distribution of the people who identify as ethnic Russians & that map also resembles almost exactly the distribution of votes during the last real democratic elections before the Junta in Kiev excluded more than 7 000 000 voters from the democratic process...this exclusion of the ethnic Russians from the democratic process was also one of the main reasons why the US Empire broke the Budapest Memorandum & destabilised the Ukraine through the extremely violent Maidan-Coup & the following "Anti-Terror-Operation" where NAZI Militia units like AZOV, Aidar, Right Sector, Dnipro etc. financed by Jewish Oligarchs like the mobster Kolomoisky & supported by regular Ukrainian Forces & aviation began a large scale Terror campaign against their own ethnic Russian civilians...The Russian military helped the Russian Civilians with the same right under which the US Military & NATO is helping now Kiev & under which the US destroyed Lebanon, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya & Syria or how Georgia illegally invaded South Ossetia in 2008...
Great video. It would have been nice to include the "de-nazification" comment Putin made and if there was any justification. There appears to be a strong far right element in Ukraine as seen by the treatment of black students who were stopped from leaving during the invasion.
The so called by russian propaghanda "strong far right element" didn't take any seat in Ukrainian parliament on 2019 election. They gathered less then 5 % of support in Ukraine. So that's definitely fake narration to "justify" de facto imperialistic invasion of the sovereign country.
Can you correct the part where you said negotiations failed? Because there have been multiple treaties that delayed this invasion from 2014 to 2022. Additionally, the U.S. refused to negotiate in good faith since December 2021. And basically responded by sending more troops and arming Ukraine.
The very notion that the biggest nuclear state in the world felt "threatened" by a defensive alliance is so laughable i'm not exactly sure why it was adressed. Pure boring propaganda
@@hellfire6714 Why does the U.S. feel threatened by middle eastern countries on the other side of the planet. Iraq's invasion was not justified at all. Same foes for Russia, except unlike Iraq, Ukraine borders it. Additionally, Ukraine has historical ties with Russia. The U.S. has no historical ties with Iraq. The U.S. also invaded many Mexican states. Now the Mexicans themselves are considered alien in those lands. People forget that most southern states belonged to Mexico.
@@F_imperialists The year is 2022. The conflict is Ukraine - Russia. You got the wrong video if your mind is on Iraq. Also the "my great great great grandpa set foot here once so it belongs to me forever" mindset is what is killing the Balkans and a lot of other areas - argument built for those of low iq and high agression.
@@hellfire6714 You have to see the big picture. This conflict started in 2014. Please read the treaties between Russia and the west since then. This was long overdue mainly because of negotiations. And no, 1 million Iraqi died because of the U.S. invasion. We will not forget. If the U.S. will never forget 3000 in 9/11, then you should understand how much more pain the death of 1 million causes. Recently, the U.S. sent troops to Somalia again. This is 2022, the U.S. is still doing what it does best.... Invade and murder.
@@F_imperialists This conflicted, much every other Russian imperialist conflicted, started the moment an ex soviet state tried to poke it's head out of the gutter. Your "bigger picture" is bigger than you think. Russians think they own everything in the general area of their country. And I do mean OWN. This is a mindset you can only really understand by seeing it first hand
Does Mexico have the sovereign rights to form an alliance with Russia? This means Russia would train Mexico's military and supply arms to Mexico. Would we allow this to happen? To the outside world, the truth of the matter is most believe we are largely responsible for the conflict, unfortunately.
You're making some unequal comparsions here. Cuba, for example, was an ally of the Soviet Union and the US finally did act, when they were about to station nuclear weapons on Cuba against the USA. NATO never put nuclear weapons on Ukraine soil, nor was this even considered.
@@dnocturn84 And yet, Cuba has been under crippling sanctions for the last 70+ years in order to pressure them to change their regime to one the US would like better, and let's not even forget the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista that Castro overthrew. Sure, the US hasn't invaded Cuba, but it also hasn't exactly been nice and friendly to it, either.
Can't be anymore right....tye west can do anything and it's just but when russia or china does something similar its wrong. No one takes about the lives of millions westerns cook everyday.
You need to be very careful about the term 'ethnic Russians'. Just because a Ukrainian citizen speaks Russian as their language of choice does not necessarily mean they want their land to become part of Russia. There were no separatist movements until Putin started sponsoring militant groups in 2014.
Sorry, but if we start redefining borders by ethnic lines, it's going to get terrible. Just look at the South East Europe for example. The idea that all members of one ethnic group have to live in one country is fascist.
More than 3 reasons of course... another being that Putin has said in numerous venues over many years that he wants (paraphrasing) to restore Russia to its former (pre-1989) glory. *Don't know if this has been already covered - haven't reviewed all the comments. I do know that Ryan was quite structured up front about his parameters for this informative segment.
No he hasn't, unless you willfully ignore the context. I follow his speeches and q&a sessions and he clearly states that although the breakup was traumatic any wish to recreate the empire is stupid. So please provide a link that includes full context.
So I painted a friends place just now and watched your whole channel up to this video. I found you by wanting to know more precisely what fascism was since people on the left and the right both like to throw that term around. Great work! -one of your newest subs
Regarding the argument of being threatened by NATO, I think we have to ask whether anyone reasonable could think that is a credible threat? Look how the US struggled and lost in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Look how Russia struggles in eastern Ukraine. How could NATO possibly consider invading Russia? You have to ignore the enormous nuclear arsenal, assume that the founding articles of NATO (that it is no threat to Russia) is an elaborate conspiracy between dozens of democratic nations, assume that the leaderships of all these countries are united in a fanatical desire to conquer the largest country on earth and somehow their electorates didn't notice, that the billion citizens of NATO would ever allow such a thing to threaten their lives and livelihoods. In my opinion it's ludicrous to imagine NATO would invade Russia, and we should not give credence to that as a justification for anything.
Agreed. NATO has and always will be a counterweight to imperialist intentions in Europe - including by the way those former imperialists within the alliance. Never has almost every smaller nation in Europe been allied in this way with a few superpowers included to add teeth. The only threat it poses to Russia is its imperialist ambitions. Which most of Eastern Europe is all too familiar with and doesn’t want to go back to.
"How could NATO possibly consider invading Russia?" That is a great question. Russia has always kept to itself (not counting the recent events), yet NATO is constantly threatening Russia but expanding to it's near countries, trying to destabilize Rússia internally or just in general partaking into aggressive rhetoric. We all know the west hates Russia, always did and always will apparently, so yeah, disappearing with Russia is westerners wet dreams ever since the red scare. You have to ask yourself why John McCain was in Ukraine in 2014, why is Bidens whole family involved with Ukraine.
Maybe as someone from inside those countries, you don't easily notice such imperialistic moves like what happened in Ukraine in 2014, but I'm from Latin America and I know. As they say, we are "vaccinated" against this kind of stuff. We can see western imperialism from miles away. And that's what NATO is: a bully, an aggressor who pretends to be the innocent.
@@devrusso a "nato is evil" argument doesn't address the point I was making that it is obviously not a threat to Russia. So using it as an excuse to wage war is disgusting. But there are so many like you blinded by hate that malign dictators literally get away with mass murder.
While invading and conquering is not feasible today there are other threats worth considering. Missile strikes, no-fly zones, port blockades and so on. And your whole argument about "elaborate conspiracy between dozen democratic nations", "fanatical desire" can be translated into "we are the good guys, we won't do bad things". Once one side obtains a leverage over other the rhetoric may and will be quickly changed to we "have the leverage and we can use it against you". Oh and electorate would not notice, they would gladly choose smaller threat of a "swift conflict today" once they are explained to about the big global threat that Russia is. It is the same rhetoric at work in Russia today: "yes we face hard times today, but it is to ensure our security in the future".
Question: Imagine in 50 years, Eastern ally were about to deploy strategic weaponry in Canada. How will the US justify its actions? (I'm assuming the US will take actions immediately considered what happened in Cuba between USSR and US) If the answer is negative, the next question is -- are the justifications even necessary in international political situations that endanger great power's national security?
@@joedirt2862 It's a great point! I think that Estonia and Latvia are different from Ukraine in terms of geographical significance from military / security point of view. By pulling out the map, we can see that if Ukrain joins NATO, there's no geographical / natural barrier beyond Dnieper River which is the divider of west and east of Ukraine. Russia clearly cares east Ukraine much more.
@@NeMayful I think the idea of mutually assured destruction has a serious flaw besides the mutual destruction. That is it's only a deterrent between two countries with nukes. However a country with nukes can invade a country without nukes and only face the retaliation of another country if that country is willing to sacrifice the human race for them. Putin's threat and lack of any country stepping in suggests this is true.
@@joedirt2862 True that Ukraine is not a formal member of NATO, and this is the whole point. From Russia's point of view, Ukraine is a de-facto NATO member - trained and armed by NATO. If Russia waited the moment that Ukraine to become a formal member of NATO, it is already too late -- that will mean to declare a war with all NATO members.
I love it that you are teaching civics, something that is severely needed in USA as our people throw around terms like Nazi and fascist without knowing what it means.
I think you made some good points however you didn't talk about the geopolitics. How the Americans and their European counterparts meddled in Ukrainian politics. How ursula von der leyen her self admitted that the Minsk agreement was a lie, how they have been preparing for a war with Russia. Please talk about the whole situation and bring light to it. Because a lot of people are just listening to western propaganda and not doing their history research.
Unfortunately, its common for the US not to negotiate before military action. Some examples are when Russia tried reducing the amount of nuclear weapons in Europe during the cold war, Sadam before he invaded Keweit which he was given the green light by washington, or with the Talaban negotiating a trial of Bin Laden before the world court. We have to take these instances and many more into account when deciding if Putin's negotiation would be taken seriously by the US when it historically tends to prefer war.
Putin spelled out his reasons in his 5,000 word essay you mention. He considers Ukraine to be part of Russia. And he would do so regardless of the existence of NATO.
"one country can't justify the invasion of another, just because they believe the government is aggressive in its civil conflict..." ahh, very true words that should be adhered by all...
Ironically for most part of history this kind of justification is very common, especially on religious grounds, and not until Westphalia when countries start to recognise the idea of non-intervention.
Re; "Was Russia Justified to Invade Ukraine?" It's NOT a case of 'justification' but a case of national survival. When societies are confronted with an existential national security threat, national survival requires a response. Russia has for decades been warning the US led NATO that NATO's eastward expansion is seen by Russia an an unacceptable threat because once NATO is sitting upon Russia's doorstep, it would create a degree of military vulnerability that no nation would willingly agree to, given that nuclear armed cruise missiles fired from near the Ukraine/Russian border would reach Moscow in less than 13 minutes. Plus, given cruise missiles ability to fly below radar detection, Russia might not know it was under attack until just seconds before nuclear detonation over Moscow. It matters not whether NATO would ever launch such an attack, national security demands that Russia never allow itself to be put in that potentially vulnerable of a position. Which is WHY the US was ready to go to war when the Soviet Union put nuclear ICBMs in Cuba, just 90 miles off the Florida coast.
There was no such threat though. It is possible that Russians feel threatened, but doesn't mean it's true. Facts don't care about your feelings, and there is no reason to believe that NATO would attack Russia. First of all Russia has nukes, and no country with nukes got invaded so far. Second if all, the time of Natos existence is the time where Russia has been invaded the least in its history, and NATO was shrinking a it's militaries until the invasion, and even longer while they tried to get piece diplomatically. Btw. The reason why countries join NATO is because of Russia's behaviour, and it's threats. NATO only accepting them, when they ran out of reasons of why not. Where is the threat here, that is supposedly so big Russia had to invade and destroy a country, that wasn't even part of NATO, nor close to joining them, and couldn't have done so itself if it wanted to and Russia didn't have nukes?
Didn’t Ukraine overwhelmingly vote in a referendum to stay in the Soviet Union, but to have it reformed. Whereas the other way was 55% voted for independence to be part of Ukraine?
An interesting analysis flawed by not mentioning to any degree the involvement of the US, UK and EU. The 2014 Ukrainian 'revolution' was a coup d'etat orchestrated by the West; this emboldened far right factions of the government to persecute ethnic Russians in the east which led to Russia annexing Crimea and the start of an 8 year long war in the Donbass where 15,000 people died. Russia didn't start a war, they went in to stop one. The real war is the USA seeking global supremacy and fighting Russia using Ukraine as the weapon. Thing is, the US is losing.
Russia was every bit as justified to invade Ukraine as Germany was to invade Poland in 1939. And the result will be the same. Are you listening, Vladimir?
Sevastopol is the key warm water port for Russia's naval surface fleet. That would be another reason why Putin would be very unhappy with Ukraine joining NATO. It wasn't mentioned in the video, and with 1000+ comments, I haven't read enough to see if this was already mentioned.
Crimea is a whole separate case to the "special military operation"... Crimea is (and I quote Gorbachov) Russia's baby, which was a historical ERROR that was finally corrected in 2014.
@@bool_k It's actually the truth, had you done a bit of basic research, even google or Wikipedia you'd realize that CRIMEA has been in the hands of the Russians for hundreds of years! The English and the Ottomans often plotted to get that piece of strategic land OUT OF the hands of the Russians... They were obsessed with it not to become a part of Russian Empire, unless of course you the Ottomans were in the right and you believe Ottomans were angels, meanwhile those dogs were PLUNDERING villages in the Balkan, forcing them to convert to a religion, STEALING their young men and turning them into elite warriors callied janissaries, and making them fight their own kin etc. etc. This part of territory Crimea has ALWAYS identified as pro-Russia ALWAYS!!! I don't remember Krushchev handing out a democratic referendum asking the crimeans if they want to belong to the Ukrainian SSR? Granted part of the Soviet Union, but suddenly they woke up part of a different administration?! Sorry, not sorry you need to do your research and condensing that complex and painful part of Russian history into one silly sentence is retarded and obviously gives the impression that someone (YOU!) doesn't understand history. FYI there were Dutch, French, Belgian, German observers when the "vote" happened, they declared the outcome valid but not the options... As if Crimeans would make the ridiculous mistake of ever aligning themselves with Ukraine! Keep dreaming!
B/S Ukraine and Russia already had a negotiation...until the west and NATO squashed it....why? Because it is the west that wants to cripple Russia and have been working towards it since Putin became president...why because Putin would not allow the west to manipulate Russia as Yeltsin did....who has exspanded borders before 2014? Russia?
While I agree that the invasion is not justified, the response has been disproportionate. Given that the various NATO and American invasions of Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003 and Libya 2011 are also not justified and the USA did not face the same criticism and hostile actions as Russia has had to endure, such as sanctions from the rest of the world. And of course American actions and the response to it sets precedents that other countries act upon. Rules are interpreted not only by what is agreed upon in terms of signed documents but also in terms of what precedents are set by the various actors on the world stage and the response to their actions.
I advise all to see the Russian movie called "Hatred". It reveals some historical "Skeletons in the closet". The full movie can be seen on RUclips. This story focuses on the western part of Ukraine that became incorporated into Poland prior to WW2. This farming region was a mixture of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews. And since 1917 came under the authority of communist Russia. With the German invasion of Poland in 1939 the ugly conflicts between these cultures came out of the woodwork. The movie starts on a happy note by portraying a wedding. The guests at this celebration are a mixture of the cultures that populate the region. But as the movie goes on, darker and darker conflict is revealed. Until after the last 20 minutes, when the scenes descend into horror. The viewer watches the Ukrainians with the help of the Germans attack and kill their neighbors with a ferocity that is hard to imagine. The ghosts of these events live on into the present as many Ukrainians celebrate those monsters who collaborated with the Nazi's as "National Heroes". And that all they wanted was Ukrainian national sovereignty. With right wing authoritarian movements and militia's increasing in Western Ukraine, it would seem reasonable the pro Russian Eastern Ukraine would become their target. As there would probably be alot of old scores to settle.
Ukraine will never admit to its real roots: killing poles en mass and fighting russia on the germans side, twice. Ukraine was more than happy to send poles and jews to germany.
And completely irrelevant to the generations fighting for power today. History is never a pretext for war but rather a motivation to recruit people to fight. Germany invaded many countries you don't see us fighting about it today because it's irrelevant. Natural gas, oil and industry are the motivations for war. And this conflict is no different. Iraq, Afghanistan (to pressure Saudi through their extremist groups), Syria, proxy war with Iran, proxy war between Russia and NATO. All these conflicts are about money.
@Uhavenoright toask Histroically accurate? So was the Holodomor. The Ukraine was using the Germans to free themselves from the Soviets or more specifically Stalin.
@@evadd2 Well, I'm sure you can explain then why at the exact same time, they were also droughts elsehwere in the world, such as the Dust Bowl in the US Midwest. I guess Stalin had the ability to control the global climate. That's not to say the Soviets didn't commit mistakes and even atrocities when handling the drought, but to present it like some event deliberately engineered to exterminate the Ukrainians is just ridiculous.
I slightly disagree with your overall evaluation. The last and best argument includes the fact that there are geriatric cold warrior maniacs throughout Western leadership. The US blowing up Nordstream proves this fact. NATO is a scourge that should disband
You say people were willing to negotiate with Russia in the days before the war but Russia was very clear that for negotiations to happen, a guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO had to be on the table. Even until the last day before the war our politicians were calling that an unacceptable demand. We were clearly unwilling to negotiate, our "negotiations" would not have included recognising Crimea as pat of Russia or limiting NATO expansion or allowing greater formal autonomy for Russian breakaway regions. Negotiations are give and take and we were not willing to meet any of Russia's core concerns. When viewed through this lens, we were not so much calling for negotiation as we were commanding Russia to back off and accept the status quo. It's easy to call for peace and stability when you are on top. Peace and stability in an unfair system just keeps the oppressed from changing their circumstances if those above them are not willing to let them right themselves.
The guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO was certainly not the only demand. Russia sent a list of 9 demands to the U.S., including 1) that Ukraine must not allowed be allowed to join NATO (as mentioned) 2) That NATO may no longer add ANY more countries to itself. 3) That NATO must pull all troops back from all territory that was added post-1991 (meaning effectively a withdraw from Eastern Europe + the Balkans) 4) Russia will only negotiate with the U.S., France, and the U.K., and other NATO members must be excluded from the discussion. All 4 of which are inherently unreasonable. And yes, they are unreasonable, as no country has the right to dictate how two other countries (willingly) act towards each other.
The analogy made England taking back American independence was plainly absurd. America fought a war with the British for its independence a fact that is still celebrated to this day in the USA on July 4th. A much better analogy (including the relative size aspect, might be England and Northern Ireland - 'created' by England in 1921 - that too was a mistake.) "There has been a sort of messy civil war going on since 2014". A statement which managed to leave out the involvement of the CIA and an American led regime change coup and the imposing of anti Russian penal laws by the puppet Government - Putin remarks concerning this and the incident in Odessa (where rooftop snipers were killing people on both sides in the crowd to cause confusion and panic) were very understated. The number killed in the Donbass Region before Feb 2022 (15,000 +) but particularly during 2014 (13,000+) support a claim of attempted genocide. There is however no need to justify an 'invasion' of Ukraine on 24th Feb. 2022. The leaders of The People's Republic of Donetsk and The People's Republic of Luhansk (independence having been declared after it was clear that the UN, France and Germany were going to do nothing to enforce the Minsk Accord, which would have left the Donbass Region as a federated part of Ukraine) invited Putin to rescue and relieve their countries, and restore their constitutional borders (the populations of both countries having been driven by siege bombardment over eight years, into small enclaves close to the Russian border - areas referred to as "rebel held" by the western media). The movement beyond the Donbass to destroy the Ukrainian Airforce and various 'fixing' or 'pinning' operations were necessary to make the Donbass secure after it had been taken by what has been no more than an expeditionary force exercise. Putin has not attempted to justify that by pointing out that the Kiev Government had assembled more than 100,000 Ukrainian National Guard troops along 'the line of contact' in the Donbass and it was necessary to isolate them and prevent them from being reinforced. Nor has he made much reference to the fortifications constructed in the Donbass as the Government troops 'dug in' during their occupation of the territory- or indeed to the training and arming of them by the USA. Thus far the arguments Putin has advanced have been treated in a light and dishonest way - a far cry from "intellectually" - even the source of the paper cited in 'evidence' is not revealed. NATO. This is the real cause of the other arguments, and with the American openly declaring that they intend to destroy the Russian economy and break the country of Russia into many (perhaps twenty) separate regions, there can be no disputing that Putin has genuine cause for concern - and has had for many years. His powerful speech in Munich in 2007 (when he said enough is enough when referring to NATO expansion) was totally ignored by 'western governments'. When asked why NATO is being expanded, the answer from 'the west' is always "the threat from Russia" - not from the Communist USSR which ceased to exist in 1991 and was the reason for the creation of the original NATO. NATO has in face more than doubled the number of countries included as members since reason for its existence disappeared. Why? There is an economic threat from Russia (they like the Chinese could become more wealthy than the USA) not a military threat. But how can the USA deal with that when the major source of their wealth is from the sale of armaments? Easy, they make war or threaten war.
The fact that you had to resort to a TeleSur broadcast speaks volumes about the lack of western MSM coverage of the Russian arguments. (not that they justify the invasion though)
Ok : I like your style and presentation . Perhaps the NATO argument is the strongest . Question : Why was NATO created and now that the ( Cold WAR ) is over does NATO have a ( mission ). At the end the ( cold war ) wasn't Russia promised that if they ( peacefully ) withdrew from Eastern Europe, NATO would not extend into Eastern Europe. That promise was broken . NATO an organization conceived purely as a ( defensive alliance ) in recent years invaded countries that possed not threat to a NATO member. You are fimular with the ( Monroe doctrine ). America claims to have the right to get involve in the ( internal affairs ) of any country in the Western Hemisphere if it feels it' s ( national interests ) are threatened. I don't think I need to remind you how many time in the last 125 years America has invaded countries in the Western Hemisphere / overthrown democraticly elected governments / murdered leaders / imposed ruthless dictators / boycotted / blockaded countries , all in the name of ( American National Interest) . Perhaps Russia should sign a ( mutual defence treaty ) with Cuba , like Ukraine it's a sovereign nation and has that right , and you will not disagree that Cuba has just cause for doing so. America has tried to ( murder ) it leader on numerous times , trained an invading army of ( counter revolutionaries ) boycotted / blockaded Cuba and been hostel in every way possible. Oh : Cuba did that , remember the ( Cuban missle crisis ) I don't understand Cuba like the Ukraine had every right to form an alliance with Russia hum : I sense a ( double standard here ) . Well after a look at NATO' s history of ( aggressive ) military behaviour , since the end of the ( Cold War ) if I was,Putin , I wouldn't want NATO on my border . Also if the ( Monroe Doctrine ) works for America and the world . Perhaps Russia should adopt the ( Putin Doctrine ) , if it works for the ( freedom loving / justice seeking ) Democracy of America it works for Russia. Now if America can tolerated Saudi Arabia, there ( absolute rulers / horrible human rights record / invasion if Neighbor / possession of atomic weapons ) well why have a problem with Russis.
Russia or Soviet Union was not promised by NATO that NATO was not going to expand eastwards. You are most likely getting that from Gorbachev which Gorbachev himself said it was untrue. You are also talking about NATO's aggressive behaviour yet NATO has not invaded any of the countries it currently operates in. Any country that was accepted into NATO was with the consent of that nation as well as every nation in the NATO. NATO is a defensive allegiance and has not invaded any eastern european nation, as opposed to russia which have invaded georgia and ukraine and threatens to invade many others. Other whataboutisms are not even worth responding.
Interesting so having NATO troops invade Afghanistan / Libya is not aggressive . I remember the end of the( cold war ) when Russia peacefully with drew its troops back to Russia. I remember why those troops where in Eastern Europe / ww2 invasion of Russia 25 million Russians died. Does that sound fimular to you. I do remember the talk in congress of withdrawing troops out of Europe , I do remember the talk in congress of their being no need for NATO , I do remember the talk about the ( peace dividend ) . As a veteran of 8 years service I followed this closely . But then the American Defense Industry work loose all those very lucrative contracts . Death and distraction is quite profitable , so for a while America has no ( evil empire ) to hate.
Strongest rebuttal on here that I have seen. Of course none of us want Russia to invade Ukraine but we do have to pay attention to what happens in the past as you stated and I heard similar things from a professor as well that support your work. Every country is looking out for their best interest, it is hard to justify a country can do it while others can’t.
War is almost always impossible to justify but if you truly look with unbiased eyes you can see how Russia can feel they're being cornered. I say this with close friends in Ukraine who are fervently against Russia in every way
Ukraine wasn’t going to join NATO and is one of the poorest country’s in Europe. Russian aggression began when Euromaiden saw the Pro Russian president leave office. They took Crimea because of political opportunism and now they cry that Ukrainians generally don’t like Russia. He brought it onto himself and Russia. What Putin declared in his speech is the excuse he made up in his head to justify what all 17th and 18th century Russian dictators do: cement their legacy through military conquest.
can you blame them? Russia poisoned ukrainian politicians. Assassinated pro ukrainian protestors. Stole the entire island of crimea. Dont get me staryed on the russian genocide of ukrainians in the 1920s and 30s. Ukrain has every reason in the world to want notbing to do with russian government and political sphere!!
11:00 I don't think that a good argument, since the world was "paying attention" to some degree to the situation in the Ukraine for several years now, yet the development has gone steadily against Russian interests. All diplomatic efforts at best stalled that development briefly. And let's not forget the U.S. involvement in the recent political developments in the Ukraine as documented by the Nuland phone call. How justified were the U.S. kindling the conflict in the Ukraine that led to the present situation. After that Russia was presented with a fait accompli, and Putin didn't want to be presented with another done deal. Another thing to consider is momentum. The decision to start a large scale conflict like the Ukraine-Russian war isn't as momentous as it seems. The hesitancy of western countries to get involved in that war shows the problem: They first need to get enough backing by their citizens, without that support they will lose power, and that also applies to Putin. But that support will wane over time, so it represents a window of opportunity. Also the estimate of the geopolitical meaning of the Ukraine should include its economic meaning (a) because of the oil pipelines running through it and maybe more importantly (b) its importance as "breadbasket of Europe". Note that all of the previous is based on a perspective of "global politics", the same global politics that is the basis for the wars in Irak, Libya, Syria, just to name a few. So while Putin should be condemned for starting that war in Ukraine, the same standards leading to that condemnation should also apply to U.S. and NATO involvements and wars in recent years and even more so in the future.
@@hrogarfyrninga3238 Sadly without effect, and at best sparsely from the established media, which is why, despite some condemnation, U.S. and NATO just did the same over and over again to several coutries.
@@Pengochan The US paid for the war in economic terms (cost them several trillion dollars) and they severely tarnished their reputation with it. They also never launched a full scale invasion and occupation ever since, rather focusing on limited scope military support or operations. Not saying what they're doing is good, however it's something all great powers tend to do. Russia has been doing plenty of that too and there was no big global reaction.
@@hrogarfyrninga3238 The U.S. tax payers paid. A lot of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors made a lot of money (and a part of that money is paid back for political campaigns of Republicans and Democrats alike, even if that's just a small part that results in huge paychecks), but all that is beside the point. Apparently we agree that starting wars, even despite there may be a dplomatic way to avoid them is part of global politics by global powers. That's not a good thing but sadly reality. So the question if Putin was "justified" is the wrong question here, and very subjective anyways. The proper question is: What should have been expected of him, could the U.S. and NATO have choosen another course long before to reduce the likelihood of that invasion, and why didn't they? That Putin / Russia is the main culprit for the invasion is pretty obvious, but how much did the U.S. and NATO contribute to the situation?
@@Pengochan From what I can gather, Putin feels threatened by the mere existence of a Ukraine that isn't politically under is control. Unfortunately for him, Russia signed an agreement guaranteeing its independence. At a time, Ukraine had basically no army, he took away part of its territory. That was the point that showed the world he would take whatever he wanted i it wasn't sufficiently defended. The only thing that may have stopped him is massive deterrence or the creation of a puppet regime like in Belarus. The latter wasn't an option for the Ukrainians. Since they decided to defend themselves as a sovereign nation and didn't want to align with Russia, I don't see what NATO could have done to prevent this situation. NATO likely assumed Putin was a rational man and would not attack, considering the size of the Ukrainian army and the scale of its territory. Putin gambled on the assumptions he made according to the information given to him, both were flawed. Additionally, he has certain beliefs about Russia's history and it's place in the world that don't align with reality. Invading for him also helped seize back power he had lost within the regime. I don't know what kind of deterrents would have needed to be in place for Putin not to take this step. In his mind, he would easily and quickly have overrun Ukrainian defences, taken Kiev, captured Zelensky and installed a puppet regime before anyone could have intervened in time.
I'm not sure, but my read on Ukrainian discreteness is that Russia is referring to Kievan Rus as their shared heritage, but that, despite their name, Russia doesn't inherit the culture of all rus-ic peoples, but inherits the particular culture of the principality of Muscovy, which is different from western rus-ics
Great point! The Russia becomes "Russia" in the 18th century by renaming on the will of Emperor. Actually the thin ties from modern Russia to the medieval Kievan Rus' goes to... the northeast province feodal that in 13th century gathered an army to going with war to the southwest (main) part, destroyed the country, destroyed the capital city Kyiv, theft the goods and massacre a lot of population.
So the enemy destroying the Kyivan Rus' at first by himself, than fully canceled it as subordinate ally with Tataro-Mongolian khanate, claiming themselves as "proudly origin of Rus'".
Don't be misleading : Russia is not the same as Kievan Rus'. They pretending to be look like and you thought that, but in reality they country origins was a threat to the Rus' from the early beginning.
That is not the truth since through history, the sovereigns of Muscovy were the sovereigns of all Rus.
@@Nista357 British dynasty are German lmao
@@vladyslavkarpenko9372 Only problem is that it is a lie 😁
@@vladyslavkarpenko9372The name of the Kievan Rus at the time of its existence was literally "Rusia"
I believe the historical mistake Putin refers to is not the independence of Ukraine gained in 1991. But the “creation of Ukraine by Lenin”. It’s popular narative that neglects the existance of Ukrainians and claims that the language was artificially created. And so was the country that supposedly never existed was created by Lenin.
There was also a Ukrainian state during the civil war
@@poushie1233so were a Kuban state, a Crimea state, a North Karelia state and many others... It was one of many nonviable statelets created in the chaos of the Russian revolutuon that died as it settled down and went into obscurity.
Watch
Europa @ the@last@battle
Everyone it’s all there.
"They are our brothers, same family." So lets make war on them!! Seems a strange reckoning.
Simple answer: No
Only recently have I discovered your channel. Thank you for your videos. You focus on evaluating sound logical arguments. Your channel is definitely worthwhile subscribing to.
He's an idiot who doesn't know what he is talking about in this video.
The third argument is self contradictory. If Ukraine can't enhance its security at Russia's expense, then Russia can't enhance its own security at Ukraine's expense. Invading Ukraine sure seems like it's at Ukraine's expense, even if it improves Russian security by stopping Ukraine from joining NATO.
Otherwise great video!
Ukraine joining NATO doesn’t even take anything away from Russia. Ukraine is not an asset owned by Russia, they are an independent nation that can choose what they want for themselves. If other countries can’t enhance their security in any way as long as it theoretically could impact the security of another, then nobody would be allowed to manufacture any kinds of weapons. In Putin’s sense, the very notion of improving one’s own security situation makes all others’ less secure in comparison. Russia is the one trying to do the taking, not Ukraine.
@@mrbeezkeez1599 "The way it ended was with The West agreeing to expand NATO further East" -- I believe that what you meant to say is that Raegan vows to not -- NOT! -- expand NATO farther eastwards of the territory of the former GDR.
"Invading Ukraine sure seems like it's at Ukraine's expense, even if it improves Russian security by stopping Ukraine from joining NATO." -- what kind of naïve and, frankly, artless argument is this? Might is right, what don't you understand?
@@mrbeezkeez1599 It wasn't actually an agreement though, there exists no treaty text anywhere saying that NATO promises not to expand further east if the USSR agrees to collapse under it's own weight. It was at best a backroom promise, which holds absolutely no water once the parties have exited the room.
There is however the Budapest Memorandum where both the US and Russia promises to safeguard the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It is non-binding ofcourse but at least it's something that exists on paper.
you had me at your disclaimer. It's just my 2nd video of your to watch. Direct and clear. lovin' it
Same
A small observation regarding the NATO point: Russia has never been invaded since NATO was formed (but, as a side note, has happily invaded other countries). If you look back at the last 220 or so years, the time with NATO is actually the longest time period for Russia without getting invaded.
1812 Napoleon
1853 Turkey in the Crimea
1905 Japan in Manchuria
1914 Germany & Co in WW1
1941 Germany & Co in WW2
Now that's not an argument in and of itself, as there are many other factors than NATO playing I to that, but still important to note.
It just makes Putin's whole NATO-is-such-a-threat rhetoric a little less persuasive.
Now let’s take in the fact that nato was created to keep Russia from expanding. We can easily see how much nato has expanded, slowly inching closer to Russia.
There were past agreement made for nato to not keep expanding toward Russia borders. No country wants a threat at there border. The Cuban missile crisis didn’t go well.
There is a professor on RUclips who talks about the complicated problem but it is worth looking into to have a little background into this conflict.
@@danjacobs6219 you probably mean Dr. Mearsheimer. I've watched his stuff, it's good input. But his approach is very focused on purely strategic thinking and only on the great powers. Here's a few thoughts:
NATO expansion: a free and sovereign country joins a coalition based on its own free will. Handshakes and aperitifs follow.
Sovjet/Russian expansion: Russia threatens and then invades a nation that mostly doesn't want to join them. War, death, destruction and suppression follow.
In Mearsheimer's presentations, those things come across as equal. I beg to differ.
Talk to a Polish anti NATO citizen and then talk to a Tchetchen war orphan. See who suffered more under the respective faction's expansion. (the first Russian invasion into Chechnia happened before NATO expansion, by the way)
Let's not only think of the two big factions but also of the fate of the people living between them.
Again, I'm not endorsing all or even most of NATO's behaviour. They sure have their points to blame. It just seems to me that Russian / Sovjet behaviour is usually 10 times worse.
TBC
@@danjacobs6219you forget most of those countries wanted to join NATO because of Russia's aggression.
@@danjacobs6219It is very simple, Finland and Sweden joined NATO as Russia invaded Ukraine. The warsaw pact states and baltic states joined NATO to not be victim of Russian aggression. We see states who protect their interests against an aggressor.
@@TorianTammasRussia did not invade finland during soviet era, and finland stayed neutral. Now that russia is weaker they pose a bigger threat than during cold war. Are you serious?
P.S. Saying soviet era may be misunderstanding, lm referring about the cold war, since winter war can be technically said to have happened during soviet era.
There is always justification for anything. If you are stronger, you make the rule. Just ask the US. Borders always move around throughout history. Just ask Israel.
I have decided to conduct Z Special Military Operation
Previous, illegal, action does not justify further action. "Well, xyz murdered someone so why can't I?"
Just because it happens does not mean it is right.
@@ThePereubu1710 If the most powerful and most respected nation does it but not only gets away with it but convinces every other nation on the planet to join I'd say that justifies it.
So crime is a useless concept to you? Everybody should do whatever they want no limitations, if someone did it before, and got away with it?
Good video, the only thing that really bothers me is what the conclusion is based on in the end: "It seems like the opportunity for diplomacy was there and it seems that Russia didn't take it". It is impossible to know if this was the case, because the public is simply not in the loop. We have no idea what negotiations were conducted behind closed doors, so there is no evidence for your assumption that Russia was not willing to solve the issue with diplomacy in the end.
I am sure Russia was willing to settle the 'issues' diplomatically, but only by the Ukraine and NATO diplomatically granting all of his demands. Further, it is well recognized in contract law that you cannot make a valid contract by holding your gun to somebodies head. Similarly, in international affairs, negotiating while holding the threat of immediate invasion if you do not get what you want from the negotiations is not a valid negotiation tactic. Ergo, regardless of whether or not their were diplomatic contacts between Russia and Ukraine in the weeks immediately prior to the invasion, Russia did not use diplomacy to accomplish its ends.
They met multiple times and pictures were publicized
I agree. There were alternatives to war other than diplomacy and war. For NATO concerns, Russia could have improved its defensive capabilities. For the residents of Eastern Ukraine, Russia could have offered Russian passports, etc.
@@AdrienLegendre Russia DID provide russian passports to the residents of Eastern Ukraine since 2014 (and that's a violation of ukrainian law, btw) as well as to other people around ex-USSR territories, just to have an excuse to invade Georgia (2008), Ukraine (2014, 2022) or, possibly, Moldova. Russia isn't interested in those residents (in fact, they were the first and the only (almost) victims of the invasion). They sent eastern ukrainian men to involuntary fight against their ukrainians brothers (and almost all of those who had been sent died), they literally destroyed almost every city and town and village where the slightest resistance was found, etc,etc,etc
Yes, i do know what i'm talking about, because i'm a russian citizen myself. Even more, my granny and dad were ukrainians from the future "separatists" territories, so yes, i know what's happening.
The only motive Putin has wasn't mentioned in this video. His real motive is to stay as a president for the rest of his life and that's it. He doesn't care how many millions would die. NATO argument doesn't make sense (Putin even said that Finland joining NATO isn't a threat, wtf?), it's just an excuse.
Oh, come on. There is a lot i could write on the subject but the truth is that ALL Putin's arguments were fakes and couldn't be taken seriously, because his goals weren't told.
No bad guy in chief would say 'I'm a big bad guy and i want to keep being a big bad guy and you all must do whatever i say because i'm a bad guy'. They always hide behind false reasoning and propaganda.
Russia signed diplomatic peace agreements in both September of 2014 and March of 2022,. Each of these deals were honored by Russia until broken by American-backed western Ukrainian forces.
I am a russian speaking ukraining all my life and I didn't feel any oppresion, trevelled around the country (also in ukranian speaking areas) and didn't encounter alienation or watever. And you can occasinally meet some degraded people under some substance in any country. I didn't see any 'torch marches' as in nazi germany in my entire life. Only on russian TV and I belive their frequency and extent was not more than in russia itself. Some minority extremist gatherings did happened in Ukraine but their activity is not more than in any other civilized country. Definitely not the goverment stance.
Regarding arson in Odesa the proper investigation and punishment of the guilty never happened and there has never been official findings announced. Some local officials in charge fled to other countries. As I understand the goverment decided to keep silence about the event. That's sad to say the least. At least they could punish for criminal negligence...
I do agree with the points stated in the video. Our country has a lot of problems and controversies but they only were used as excuse for casus beli.
And lastly you can see very clear picture of their intentions if you watch russian TV. After two years of war they are not shy to state their intentions anymore right on the state TV. You don't need a lot of political background for this. There are a lot videos with english subtitles from russian TV.
Great. The world needs unbiased clarifications such as the one being related to us in this platform. Both sides of the story.
When you see a person being mercilessly beaten or a woman raped, do you intervene or wait till you get both sides of the story?
For all the facts.
Look up utube The Grayzone with Max Blumenthal, The New Atlas with Brian Berletic, Patrick Lancaster, George Galloway, Graham Phillips.
I will post some of their links in the next comment in case utube deletes
Also Jimmy Dore
BBC Newsnight 1mar2014
Neo nazi threat in new ukraine
ruclips.net/video/5SBo0akeDMY/видео.html
@@romany8125 and what point do you wanna make here, mind i ask?
Comparing a war where you can't even intervene and only watch one or both sides with something you could and naturally would intervene doesn't sound fair or relatable at all
And either way, let's say we could stop the guy who was beating the guy or "doing" the women, we (or maybe just the police) could still interrogate him and see their perspective (not trying to say rape and beating someone to death is something justified tho, just like this war, everyone is technically in the wrong)
Thank you for your overviews, which are always as logical, unbiased and simple as possible.
I follow you with interest from Italy. I hope your channel grows, it is a great format!
Accurate
Not too accurate fron 7min.
The channel by Patrick Lancaster proves that Ukraine is the aggressor
Also look up The Grayzone by Max Blumenthal
13 killed in trollybus attack
ruclips.net/video/8OYVmkvki7Y/видео.html
Elderly live underground in fear
ruclips.net/video/-brDwwkHUdw/видео.html
The analysis is right, the conclusion is a bit off. The fact that Russia had warned the west for years, the west are ignorant to take it seriously. You think a few days before the war could result anything? The west is lead by bunch of weak men. That's the natural result. As they say, strong men creating good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times ...
the bigest mistake is to apply individual morality to nation states.
Nations are made up of individuals. Those individuals make decisions. Nations are just responsible as individuals are.
Wait, if improving your security at the expense of another nation's security is bad, what is improving your security by invading another nation?
Exactly what I was thinking. Not sure how Ryan didn't see that and thought it was a good argument.
Both are bad. What should have been done was a balance maintained, but sadly.
@Com K well then don't bullshit me about it. I just think that ideally, two larger nations shouldn't use smaller nations sandwiched between them as chess pawns. Although that's not going to happen in my life.
@Com K Surprise: people who don't fight in a war, have this choice of remaining neutral. Also, when I talked about two large nations, I in no way included Ukraine.
@@landmerry_6742 Russia didn't respect Ukraine's sovereignty. Simple as that. Can I tell you what to do if I'm not harming you? You will get on your knees when they want you to.
I might be mistaken, but there is also fourth argument. They also condemned NATO's (or EU's, I don't remember exactly) East expansion a lot, stating that it contradicted agreements made in 90ths.
and the eaatern expansion is now proven correct by this invasion and talks of attacking finland and estonia
@@PolishBehemoth that sounds like a self fulfilling prophecy. Nato keeps expanding, going against the promise that they wouldn't and reach a critical red line. This forces Russia's hand to invade Ukraine to make a point and somehow this proves that Nato expansion was necessary? The West (the US in particular) is just as guilty of this war as Russia is if not more in my opinion.
NATO I believe, yes. Trading blocs like EU are a lot less scary than military alliances with collective security pacts like NATO.
The argument against Putin's second point is, 1. Zelenskyy had said he would abandon any attempt to join NATO. 2. Olaf Scholz had already stated that "as long as he was Chancellor, he would not allow Ukraine to join NATO.
The NATO charter does not allow countries which are engaged in civil conflict to become members. For as long as there was fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukraine was not going to join NATO.
And yet, Blinken & co. kept going on about an open doors policy. Zelensky later went on to admit in an interview to CNN, that he was explicitly told that Ukraine would never join NATO or the EU, but that they would publicly continue to claim they would. So it looks like the West was deliberately bluffing in order to appear strong and tough to Russia, and inadvertently made things worse in the process.
This whole situation reminds me of a situation we had on IRC back in 2014 where two of my staff members were acting all tough and uncompromising to a guy to the point that the guy got pissed off and began DDoS'ing us hard. Then, when I realized that literally the only way to resolve the situation was to negotiate with him, and actually resolved the situation, I was called weak. Then, it all repeated with another guy (those two clearly learned nothing), and once again, I was demanded to never negotiate, never surrender... well, all until we did the maths and realized we needed €5000/month tier anti-DDoS protection to block the guy's full capability, so we once again realized that negotiation was the only way to get out of it, which at that time, meant kicking the entire channel where it all started, ie. complete capitulation.
Sure, one could say that me negotiating with the first DDoS'er emboldened the second one, but one could easily claim that in fact, those two staff members of mine acting all tough and uncompromising until we got DDoS'ed, was what actually emboldened the second one as he had learned from the first one that the only way to get the staff to act reasonably was to DDoS.
And I think that could easily apply here - in all its acting tough and uncompromising (while behind the back, in fact doing exactly what Russia demanded them to do), they inadvertently angered Russia to the point of invading Ukraine. And I suspect that now, even if they finally make concessions to Russia to end this war, they have already ensured China invades Taiwan, as they have likely made China think that the only way to get concessions from the West is if you do something unspeakable that will shock them. Ie. just like in my IRC situation 2014, the Western leaders here have, with their tough and uncompromising stance, started a chain reaction that will only end well with the West's complete capitulation. Well, if China does decide to have its own go, the West *may* be able to deter them if they show they learned their lesson and this time, making concessions.
@@OBrasilo Taiwan and Ukraine are completely different situations. Taiwan (the Republic of China) has been a part of China since at least the 17th century, and as the last refuge of the Chinese nationalist government it sees itself as the legitimate government of all China. Any conflict between Taiwan and China would just be a resumption of the civil war that ended in 1949. Ukraine was granted its independence by the USSR, who were also a guarantor of its sovereign integrity. As a sovereign independent nation surely Ukraine has the right to determine its own destiny. Putin complains about NATO and the EU constantly encroaching on Russia, so Putin needs to ask himself why former Soviet republics don't want to join with Russia? Putin believes in a Russia as set by Aleksandr Dugin in his "Foundations of Geopolitics" and since he came to power has been working to bring it to fruition.
the argument is “trust us bro, we wont do it”.
like they did in 1999 and 2004 and 2007 and 2009 and 2017 and 2020.
sure anybody in the russian government will believe this, lol
3:42 A more appropriate analogy, in terms of geographical proximity and culture, would be England saying that independent Ireland or Scotland would be a mistake.
It would be an even better analogy to say that US wanted to capture Britain based on the fact that they share common blood and language and used to be in one country
If by Ireland you mean Southern Ireland, it is an independent state. Saying that an independent Scotland would be a mistake is hardly analogous to invading a peaceful country.
@@terryhand the key words are “geographical proximity” and “culture”. Please pay attention.
@@BuckeyeRutabaga
Your analogy stands.
Just add language to it. What's spoken in Scotland is a variation of Middle English, much closer to modern English than Ukrainian is to Russian.
Or US could argue the exact same thing about Canada.
Nice way to treat “family”
7:33 ''one country can't justify the invasion of another because they believe a government is being aggressive in a civil conflict''...
Really? What would be ''the proper'' justification then? Maybe claiming that a country has chemical weapons, which were never found? Or defending democracy? Or to free the people of another country from their government?
A perfect example of how the west uses liberal internationalism as an iron rod to criticise their opponents when pursuing actions aimed towards guaranteeing their State's safety whereas when they do it for not even existential safety reasons it is perfectly justifiable. Alexander Dugin is right in correctly assessing liberalism to have become stale and rigid and therefore totalitarian in its reaction to any sort of opposition to it.
I don't think he mentioned any of those as being valid justifications?
How does that make it any easier for us who live next to Putin.
Actually, those are wrong, too. Just like how the invasion of Ukraine was evil.
@@marinadowden6038 it’s more like the cuban missile crisis. When nato adds countries and puts arms in those countries aimed at Russia..they are threatened. The Minsk agreement was supposed to halt additions to nato. We, the west, broke the agreement 13 times. A Russian friendly government of Ukraine was overthrown by the USA. So why wouldn’t this be analogous to the Cuban missile crisis!!!
It’s always such a treat watching your content Ryan. Thank you for having the courage to tackle this subject. We HAVE to do a Podcast together!!
Also you should consider the fact that non of ex-KGB agent's spoken statements does not reflect his real intentions and underlying reasons. Statement of him is an instrument of achieving his real goals but not a mean of communication.
When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Ukrainians had every opportunity to make the case they wanted to go back to being part of Russia. They did not.
re: 10:45 , Ryan
what leaders begged Putin to negotiate?
There were only two that mattered: Presidents
Zelensky and Biden
Please!! refer me to where either of them offered to institute the Minsk agreement as an alternative to war. or did Biden urge a backing off of Zelensky's Munich intimation that he needs nuclear weapons. I do remember Blinken referring to Russian proposals as " non-starters"
He's biased.
He didn't even talk about the coup lead by the US, the non respect of the NATO extension and the minks agreement.
Also the attacks on donesk are well documented but he didn't even take a glance at it.
It's not the only video where he is showing history on one side. It's the same for his video on China & Taïwan and even on the 2nd world war.
This is a representation of our western media nowadays. They are ready to rewrite history to follow their narratives.
Bingo! Where is everybody now to reply on this question.
I’ve just subscribed to your RUclips channel after watching your excellent presentations on fascism. Your work is a gold standard for that rare commodity of well thought out, nuanced analysis of complex issues that employs with deftness social media’s extraordinary power to present visually and convincingly supporting evidence.
Indeed, "Gold standard" and "Ryan Chapman" definitely go together.
Using Putin's logic, we should have attacked the USSR when we had a monopoly on nuclear weapons based on the suspicion that they might become an existential threat in the future. Maybe we should have bombed China when the USSR wanted us to so they didn't become an existential threat.
Peter Zeihan has a hypothesis that Russia is attacking because it sees imminent demographic decline and it had to attack now because in the future, it would be unable to do so. So they must extend their borders to more defensible locations, plug certain natural invasion routes, and create defensive depth. If Ukraine fell, Moldova would be next, and then he'd do to the Baltics what he did to the Donbas. Putin thinks of the West as weak, corrupt, and too hedonistic to stand up to him.
My own feeling is that Putin envisions himself as Peter the Great mixed with a bit of Stalin. He is permanently locked into a Cold War mindset where the West is terminally weak and decadent but ideologically threatening. We were all deluded into thinking Russia had the 2nd best military in the world, and he shared that delusion. He also had a delusion that Ukraine was going to roll over and play dead. Putin's psychology is not to negotiate for something when he thinks he can just take it.
I don't believe he feared the West for a heartbeat. We all thought he had a military far superior to any individual military in Europe and more nuclear weapons than would be needed to deter any invasion. Ukraine was never getting into NATO. He had a grip on Europe's energy. NATO was braindead and it will be all over before the divided and narcissistic Americans can get their act together. He was given the information he wanted to hear and believed it without question because he needed it to be the truth.
I dont think nato exspansion would be the line he would take. Because in the tucker interview carson layed it out for him to take that path but putin went on a historical rant, meanwhile Putin knew an western adince was going to consume it.
Sorry for the bad english
True, that rant was certainly wasting a good opportunity. Much could have been different if Putin had been a better communicator. He did eventually turn focus to the other points, but most viewers were gone by then.
Welp but from Putin's point of view at a military level, the "call to negotiate" could just be seen as a stalling tactic, as on the ground this situation is at the zenith of favorable conditions for his invasion.
Any later and the conditions of war become less favorable. So I'm not very surprised with his current perception, that he decided to pursue this line of decisions.
Putin’s reasoning has always been intellectually dishonest. It’s true, Russia probably does feel threatened by Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership. However, Russia has proved time and time again that they are the type of threat that NATO exists to quell in the first place. As an analogy, Putin crying about Ukraine joining NATO is like a bully beating you up because you told the teacher about him bullying you. It doesn’t hold up, and no one who isn’t already compromised believes them.
its the same as JFK and the cuban crisis, no one wants nukes on their doorstep
Russia has proved time and time again that they are the type of threat that NATO exists to quell in the first place... sounds like all your reasoning is "Rusia is a bad guy". same story telling applies to Iraqis and Afganistan ... list can go on and on.
Creating and naming enamies are the reasons for thousands years of human wars. a nation or a group of nations seeking absolute geo-political advantage and absolute security over others won't make you safe. the other end of the road is either you destroy your enemy, like Iraq, or set fire on yourself. remember Rusia has nuclear weapon. you may have many smart strategies to win the war and gain absolute advantage over Rusia except one for peace with giving your opponent some room to survive.
Russia never attempted to even one time step across its borders until it was provoked by the West's effort to encroach upon Russian borders via NATO expansion. If NATO had kept its promise made in 1990 not to expand, this war would not have taken place. NATO's behavior since the fall of the USSR has been anything but defensive, proving that it was founded upon offensive objectives.
Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada on the same premises, the US threatened ww3 in the Cuban crisis on the same premises. The invasion of Iraq ,Lybia and other place in the last decades are on even more dishonest premises. I have no support for Putin nor Russia but the level of hypocrisy displayed in the west is baffling. What Putin succeeded with this is to make it harder for a unipolar world to keep existing next time the drum of war will beat on media I hope that it get harder for those that have condemned Russia to pull of the bs out of their playbook. No one as a God given right to bully the rest of the world without being challenged.
Nato was created to bully and destroy the ussr. It was the original threat. It wasn’t created to oppose an actual threat, but only to destroy the economic enemies of the west. It is an arm of western capitalism.
Let us be clear in regard to the Russian/Ukrainian war: The relationship between Russia and Ukraine became, in the time of the Soviet Union, a marriage of convenience not of love. When the USSR broke up, in a time of weakness the ruling elites of both nations put up with each other. But when Russia became stronger and a divorce became inevitable, Russia did not want to split the house and the kids so now to forcibly settle the issue its way, it terrorizes the wife and her kids and makes their lives unbearable and even desires to kill her and her kids. This is the mindset of the Russian elite and for this reason they are now treating Ukrainians like rats, taking away from them the necessities of life.
My strong wish is that the Russian population will not support their elite in these awful crimes and will find the courage to oppose those that have brought so much suffering to the Ukrainian population and to a lesser extent the Russian population as well. Russia could live very well without any of the acquired Ukrainian territories. The greater weapon needed right now is against a prideful and hateful Russian elite and the portion of the population that supports them. This weapon can only come from Russian people of common sense, Russian people of integrity, and Russian people who truly love God who with courage show their opposition to the Russian elite who has misled them. Many of the Russian media members should be ashamed of the statements they have allowed themselves to make and repeat. In their conversations they have put God aside and for this cause they have become foolish.
will you find courage to oppose western military excursions?
@@saccount-z3 he spilled same shit westerners say when they try to "buy" you with sweet words. And they play us everytime. That's just who they are. There is a saying, everytime west tries to silence somebody, in most cases, he is doing something right.
I am greatly enjoying your work to think, analyze and understand the situation critically. I would like to give my understanding of Russian thinking in this regard, this is not meant to justify the action, it is meant to achieve a thorough understand of their standpoint.
To correctly understand Russian thinking regarding this issue I would believe that the Alexander Dugin's concept of ethnos is of crucial importance. Russians do not understand countries the way you defined them. Dugin's philosophy is based on Martin Heidegger's notion of Dasein and connects it with his notion of Volk (the people). A country is a sacred soil of the Volk (the people). I am inferring by your speech and endeavor that you are American. Americans as a people and culture have no soil, not in the material sense, this of course they do, but in the sacred ethnical sense, they do not. The soil they live on belongs to the Native Americans in the sacred sense.
This notion of sacred soil is crucial in understanding the justification Russians have for themselves to purse these military goals. Sacred soil with the sacred religion (orthodox church) with sacred people and the sacred ruler (the Tsar), that is how they understand their identity. This sacredness should not be understood in the secular protestant way as is commonly understood in the Anglo-American cultural context. This sacredness should be understood in the sense of a belonging to a cultural-historical context, in the sense of Heidegger's Dasein. The eastern part of Ukraine is orthodox in the cultural-historical sense and therefore, from the Russian standpoint belongs under the sacred soil of Russia. I would recommend looking into the ideas of Dostoyevsky's character Shatov in his work the Demons to understand this better.
Finally, the basic geopolitical textbook was written by Alexander Dugin and is used in most Russian military circles for education. The Russian geopolitical philosophy is based on Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. Their goal is to achieve a multipolar geopolitical world as opposed to a unipolar world of the West, they believe the correct poles are those that Huntington defined in his book.
Some might understand this as a form of Orthodox fundamentalism (similar to Islamic fundamentalism), which I will not judge on, but I think that if the Russian's secularized their worldview as the far West protestant worldview they would believe to not be Russians anymore, I think that the essence of what they believe to be an existential threat. Existential threat in the sense of Dostoyevsky's Orthodox existentialism.
Ah...thanks for explaining why it's okay for "Russians" to murder innocent men, women and children, I was wondering about that.
But that's the ideological view, there's the material view which is vastly different, what guides Russian interest is the Russian oligarchy, some points of the video weren't that accurate, indeed the first two justifications were just to gather favourable public opinion, but the third one... Well, lacks the knowledge of the Minsk accords, which Merkel herself acknowledge they weren't respected and the US used to gather time, also the cable leaks by the WikiLeaks showing Nuland raging against the EU, the stages Maidan protests, the IMF involvement, there are a lot of things that aren't said, but it could be research to understand what really went on, and the truth is the Russian oligarchs are trying to negate resources and trivial infrastructure to their western counterparts, which themselves are trying to earn a quick buck without losing man of their own to provoke another outcry of another lost war, they rather "fight to the last Ukrainian", since they won't fight anyway, in the end is like the mafia says: "just business"
@@Rrgr5 Both of you make great points to understand the Russian ideological explanation for the invasion, although a deeply flawed narrative.
My question is, do we ultimately need to understand Russia's aggression?
Does a person need to understand a robber that has broken into one's house? Did the Western allies need to understand Nazi Germany view of Liebestraum? Ukrainian sovereignty is the beginning and the end of the discussion. The rest is just mental gymnastics.
@@bernardzsikla5640 yes we need to prevent it, is that difficult to understand? Why you think we study history? Your abstractions don't really add up here, that kind of discourse looks more like a gaslight than anything.
@@Rrgr5 Interesting, you had such a thoughtful explanation and understanding of Russian ideology and your reply devolved into just a silly comment. Ultimately, we don't need to understand Authoritarianism. We need to defend against it.
And again you mentioning gaslighting, you might want to Google the term. Your original lengthy explanation of Russian ideology is more of a gaslighting apologist mentality than anything I had stated.
The days of marching into a country and saying "this land is ours now and if you don't like it we are going to fight for it" are long gone now. Putin is 100% wrong. Just let the Ukrainians live in peace.
Great analysis. Your videos are educational & informative. Glad i subscribed.
Great clear, succinct analysis, although no mention of the Minsk agreement?
Now, are there similar videos in the US Iraq & Afghanistan invasions?
The ukraine scenario is closer to ireland than the usa. Also russia published their views on a new pan-european security architecture, they were ignored and the media dismissed russian concerns.
In return for withdrawal & dissolution of ussr, certain conditions that were promised by the west were broken. We know this based on declassified files, biographies & transcripts.
Can you please provide me further resources on those broken promises?
Thanks.
The broken promise that is being vaguely referred to were comments made in 1990 by US Secretary of State James Baker. Baker had specifically promised the Soviets that NATO would move “not one inch eastward”. However, this was never codified in any treaty or agreement that came as a result of the talks this statement was included in, and the USSR collapsed shortly after, completely changing the security situation that the talks were about in the first place. As it stands, there is no binding promise/agreement that prevents NATO from allowing countries east of Germany to apply and join. Putin knows this. It’s nothing but rhetoric to gain sympathy for his unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine. Don’t fall for it.
Also, the Soviets never agreed to dissolve. The Warsaw pact countries left the pack after the USSR demonstrated it wouldn’t stop them. On the other hand, the republics making up the union took the opportunity of Russian weakness to get themselves out from under the thumb of Moscow, and each declared independence. It turns out authoritarianism isn’t popular with the people that are suppressed by it.
@@bkc7890
Thanks for sharing that info but what about Russia's security irrespective of whether that promise was never officially ratified.
Doesn't Russia have a legitimate case to be made regarding Ukraine being allied with the West and showing no commitment to not ease up its attacks on the separatists?
How could this not be a serious concern that Russia is being forced to confront?
@@LouisGedo The separatists are propped up by Russia and don’t have nearly enough local support to survive on their own. They would have been crushed in 2014, when the Ukrainian military was practically nothing, without Russian intervention.
As for promises made, the administration who made that uncodified promise is no longer in power, meaning the promise doesn’t exist between the US and Russia. Also, it was the Soviets that the promise was made to technically, not the Russian federation, so another degree of separation. An actual treaty with that promise in it would have made it a justifiable argument, but since it was not a formal agreement, there is no responsibility to hold it up.
As for actual broken promises and formal agreements, the Russian Federation signed the Budapest memorandum in which they agreed, in exchange for Ukraine giving up their nuclear arms, that they would guarantee Ukrainian sovereign territory as it was. Fast forward to 2014, they’re annexing crimea and propping up separatists because they disagree with the direction Ukraine wants to go. Fast forward to 2022, they are invading the rest of Ukraine.
I agree on you on the first two points. But in the last segment you said “they would first need to exhaust their diplomatic solutions.” I’m not sure if you know but the Russians had negotiated with NATO over 10 times to not spread their influence further east. You also state that “the world wanted Putin to negotiate” he did. Read about the Minsk agreement. In the first month of the war, Russia and Ukraine sent diplomats to Turkey to reach an agreement, they had concluded in the neutrality of Ukraine… Boris Johnson PM of UK told Zelenskyy to break off ALL DIPLOMATIC SOLUTIONS and then the war progressed. You clearly didn’t read enough about the topic, you would have known that there already was an agreement that was destroyed by a NATO member… hope you inform yourself a little better next time
Why should Ukraine seek peace with Russia after Russia had invaded? Why do you think Russia is even interested in peace? It just hit a children's hospital with cruise missiles yesterday. That's not an accident. Ukraine has no choice but to fight this war. It's being attacked every single day for the 29 months
Short answer: No
Long answer: Noooooooo
I understand you were focusing on Putin's own writings and speeches on the matter but two worthwhile things come to mind.
First is that NATO wanted this war. There was an American think thank that did a rather simple calculation. If we play tough on Ukraine either A) Putin backs down and looks weak at home and abroad or B) he invades and we use that as a pretext to bleed and ruin Russia. It is a win-win from a US standpoint, if one does not care about Ukranian blood. And clearly they don't since they ignored all Russian calls for a binding agreement despite their intelligence being correct for once that war was imminent.
Second is how Russia from even before Russia was an independent country was opposed to the expansion of NATO. Which duh, but the thing is the Westerners promised Gorbachev they would not even militarize East Germany let alone more. Refusing to unequivocally say no to expansion into Ukraine was like two steps beyond the red line (even admitting the Baltics was extremely provocative really).
First, I don't think US foreign policy wants to "ruin" Russia. It would bring too much uncertainty with nuclear arms - negotiating with too many states or failed state makes things more complex not less. They would rather make it weaker economically to keep its aggression in check.
Second, regarding expansion - Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, former USSR satellite state, are already in NATO and in very close proximity to Moscow and St Petersburg, some of them even share border with Russia. So Kremlin's pretext here that Ukraine joining Nato would make existential threat to Russia is overly exaggerated. NATO's missile defense systems if placed are meant to intercept attacking missiles and not designed for offensive purposes. Now regarding promises - Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994 as part of Budapest memorandum, which Russia signed, in return for security guaranties - and now this promise got broken.
Finally, if you look at the situation holistically and from historical context, establishing of separatist regions like South Ossetia, Transnistria, DNR, LNR and bullying of Georgia and other states around Russian "sphere of influence" have one in common - large Russian speaking population within those countries. There is complete disregard for human capital in those operations, bringing "Russkiy Mir" only brought more misery to the places. The whole purpose of those proxy states is to destabilize the countries and prevent their liberalization, and establishing rule of law within those countries which would pave a way for prosperity for their nations. Kremlin is afraid that if a neighboring country successfully liberalized and prosperous this would set a precedent for Russians population. This would put existential threat to the Kremlin's regime and they would loose power.
@@cleverparmesan4793 I agree that trying to ruin Russia should not be part of the American agenda, but it is. These sanctions and anti-Russian hysteria will really harm Russia. And more critically push it towards China as a junior partner. China still has a lot to gain from Russia in terms of military tech and ofc raw resources. So what the US is doing is crippling their secondary rival which will bolster their primary rival, aka a mistake.
Furthermore I already said admitting the Baltic countries was a mistake. We are lucky the Russians were so permissive at the time. I'd call it grounds for war if I was them frankly. But now it's a fait acompli so it's tolerated, barely. I don't think there are missiles there and hopefully there won't be. Prefect defense equals perfect offense, and Russians know it too.
It is possible, probable even, that Russia likes having these breakaway regions to have a finger in the pie of other counties. But there are Russians living there, a majority usually so they do have some right to meddle. And those places can jettison those pro-Russian regions but they prefer to keep them at the cost of this supposed great desire to become American servants.
@@cleverparmesan4793 Ukraines nuclear weapons were Soviet weapons as if they would just give them to Ukraine after they left. NATO expansion to entirely encircle Russia is an existential threat - no other way of looking at it and to say it is defensive is completely disingenuous. Also it certainly is US policy to" Bleed" Russia with sanctions and any other way possible just as it is to regime change both Russia and China. Both Russia and China know this and have prepared. The US is so blinded by hubris or fear of losing hegemonic power it has overplayed its hand and will now suffer the consequences. You need to wake up - the US is a world wide dictatorship that feels it has the right to invade countries at will, sanction them, destabilise and organise coups. The majority of the planet has had enough and is moving on with new alliances and a fair world order
Saying that NATO wanted this war is on its face ridiculous, even speculating about it with the reason that they "want to bleed and ruin Russia" is nonsensical. Why on earth would NATO (a defensive alliance), want to destabilize one of, if not THE biggest nuclear power on the planet? Adding on that "NATO" does not care about Ukrainian blood, while they are the ones (along with over half the world) actively trying to help both Ukrainian civilians and the state with all necessary supplies, taking in refugees and even going so far as to give all available benefits to said civilians is probably the dumbest thing you wrote in your little comment.
Russia is opposed to the expansion of NATO, because they cannot fuck with any nation that is in NATO. They destroyed Chechnya, created puppet "breakaway states" in Moldavia, Ukraine and Georgia (and invaded the latter two) precisely because they are NOT in NATO. The only threat to Russia is that they cannot ruthlessly "expand" the "Russkiy Mir" to countries that are in NATO. "Westerners" promised the USSR that they would not expand NATO infrastructure to East Germany if Gorbachev allowed the reunification of Germany, they never promised not to expand NATO to anyone, let alone Russia. Even Gorbachev himself has stated this multiple times in both interviews and in books. The "red line" toted by a middling regional power to restrict European countries sovereign rights to join defensive alliances is a joke, a bad one at that.
"You can't join the club against bullying!!! Thats my red line, because I can't bully and beat you up if you do!"
@@tehcookie2417 I have no time to waste on an overly nationalistic fool who doesn't understand the basics of geopolitics. I hope nuclear fire will keep you as warm as this blatant Western propaganda you've chugged down. Because behind the bravado that is what is being played with here, annihilation. And if it comes to that what will those counties that joined NATO gain? My country at least has a reasonable chance to avoid the bombs less so them, and you.
I find the question bit weird since I think that it's impossible to objectively justify anything. It just comes down to values.
3:49 Canada would've been a better example as the US took independence whereas Canada was granted it
Could you do a video on if the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia in 1999 was justified?
Why can't you make it yourself?
@@robertbones326 I'm not really a youtuber, I'm just giving a suggestion, is there a problem?
@@ОлгаЦветковић
Why is it important?
I think EU inaction at the ethnic cleansing next doors was shameful.
@@SusCalvin
Says an anonymous user with no experience in foreign policy what so ever.
I've seen your video just now, and I'd like to point out the oddness of "Civil war" part, as there were not civil war in Ukraine between "east" and "west" of Ukraine, at least not since 1991.
I also think it to be worth mentioning that the war between russia and Ukraine started in 2014, yet it is 2024 when Ukraine faced the full invasion of its territories. Giving that russia invaded Ukraine much earlier, those reasons to invade Ukraine back then might also be worth taking into consideration ( I do not mean to say they are justified).
Anyhow, it was a nice try and though having quite a rough view on what was going on in Ukraine, the conclusion is the same - russia's aggression is not justified.
Generally, I appreciate the effort put into this video. However, I believe you have missed some critical aspects. For argument 1), you have confused the Soviet Union with Russia. While Russia was a major player in the USSR, not all of their leaders were even ethnically Russian, but other nationalities. Stalin was Georgian, Lenin was a true product of Russian multiculturalism and had a mixed background, Malenkov was Macedonian in addition to Russian, Krushchov was not born in Ukraine but was absolutely obsessed with Ukraine and practically was Ukrainian, Brezhnev claimed to be Ukrainian, but it’s a tough call. Gorbachev was Ukrainian-Russian-Jewish, Andropov is unclear, and so is Chernenko. Even with all that being the case, Ukrainian, modern Russian, and Belarusian identities are still forming, and prior to the Soviet Union, the Russian empire encapsulated these various identities (and the Soviet Union continued to do so). We can’t really say that modern Russia is the the same country as the USSR…at all. Putin said Ukraine’s formation was a mistake, but it was not a Russian mistake, but a Soviet mistake. Big difference honestly. He also did not say and has never said that he is considering removing or halting Ukraine’s independence. There is no evidence to suggest that Russia plans for expansion and/or is acting to take over, occupy, or control Ukraine, but of course they are offering to protect and take back Donbas land for the DPR and LPR, and as the situation unfolds, we will see what happens with Kherson and some other areas that wish to depart from Ukraine.
As for Crimea, which you didn’t talk about much, the 2014 referendum is a near identical vote to basically the same decision in the 90s. Overwhelming majority (over 90%) of Crimeans with over 90% voter turnout decided they wanted independence from Ukraine as part of Gorbachev’s Union Treaty. Ukraine illegally vetoed the referendum after the U.S. pressured the Ukrainian government, claiming that Russia could not have access to the Black Sea. If the US had not interfered in the 90s, Crimea would have left Ukraine decades ago. The same result occurred in this 2014 referendum - pretty clear that Crimea does not want to be part of Ukraine. My home town has a sister city in Crimea and everyone who has visited says the people consider themselves overwhelmingly Russian, not Ukrainian. Not a single person was killed in the 2014 transfer of Crimea…there were no deaths.
For part 2), while you could argue the semantics of genocide regarding Odessa, Ukraine’s continued bombing and serious violations of seize fires for 8 years in the Donbas could certainly constitute genocide. After the 2014 Maiden coup, the very first law passed by the new “government” was the banning of the Russian language in all public sector work. It’s quite terrifying. In fact, the DPR and LPR referendums were not for independence from Ukraine, but for autonomy within Ukraine…but despite this, Ukrainian government spearheaded by neo nazi battalions began the Anti Terror Campaign and began the assault on the Donbas, where cluster ammunition has killed civilians. Over 14,000 people on both sides (all pretty much Ukrainian citizens, mind you), have died since 2014. France and Germany signed a declaration agreeing to force Ukraine to uphold the Minsk Accord, but when Ukraine continued shelling of civilians, neither country did anything. Russian Parliament had been begging Putin to recognize the DPR and LPR and he was very hesitant to do so. In fact, he rejected the Parliament’s call for recognition of the territories in February 2022, and only finally recognized when shelling was continued during negotiations.
You say that Ukraine’s aggression does not warrant invasion, but I beg to differ. Someone needs to stop the death of innocent people. It’s not okay to let people die for no reason other than their ethnicity, language, and belief.
There is so much more to this than most people are aware of, and while again, I appreciate your video as one of the least inflammatory, I believe you are missing a lot of context and information which is absolutely critical to this situation. Ukraine’s policies of executing politicians, Western European and U.S. role in 2014 Euromaiden, CIA training program of Azov battalion, etc. all add to to the fire. It’s a horrible situation and it’s even more horrible that this has turned into a good vs evil paradigm. I highly recommend anyone interested in Russian relations to read Creating Russophobia: From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria by Guy Mettan. I also recommend the following article by independent French Think tank: cf2r.org/documentation/la-situation-militaire-en-ukraine/
It is written by an ex-NATO official.
Anyway, thanks for the video - it at least sparks some more standard discussion of the topic.
Why did the ukrainian government start shelling its own people? Wasn't it a contermeasure against russian separatism? why didn't you include that in your little essay?
@wrijin I agree completely. In Denmark we have zero political will to acknowledge these matters, but they are very relevant in any decent objective analysis.
You know Russia has (according to the United Nations) destroyed or, quote, ‘damaged beyond repair’ roughly _80-95%_ of all the buildings in the city of Mariupol? Within the first three months of the war? That was a city with a pre-war population greater than 39/50 U.S _state capitals._ And it’s just fucking gone. It got Dresden’d. It got Hamburg’d. Berlin’d, Warsaw’d, Stalingrad’d, Rotterdam’d, fucking _Hiroshima’d._ It’s just gone.
Over 200 schools were hit within the first _three months_ of the war. The United Nations estimates over _10,000 cases of rape._ Civilian casualties likely exceed the amount of people that have died in fucking _Gaza,_ for goodness sake. We have _dozens_ of cases, all spread out, of Russian soldiers firing upon civilian vehicles. Kharkiv has been struck with over a _dozen_ missile strikes _every single day_ for over a _year_ now, almost all of which go on to strike purely civilian targets. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of the 4th of April, 2024, Russia has bombed roughly ~1,682 hospitals and healthcare facilities in Ukraine. Over _1,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities._ Like, holy fucking shit.
Ukrainian POWs are being released severely malnourished and mistreated. I watched a video of over a hundred Ukrainian POWs exiting a bus after finally arriving back in Ukraine following a prisoner swap, and I do not exaggerate when I say that every single one of them looked like they just walked out of fucking _Auschwitz._ I’m serious. I actually went and compared real photos of Auschwitz prisoners out of disbelief, and I’m dead serious when I say they looked almost identical.
Russia has been deliberately targeting energy infrastructure throughout the winter, and almost every single fucking day they hit another apartment complex. The global community overwhelmingly agrees they have been, and currently are, targeting highway intersections at rush hour. They are also being tried for simply fighting- which is a war crime. So is driving around in vehicles marked as ambulances, but we have photos of Russia doing that. We have Ukrainian civilians being forced to wear Russian uniforms so they get shot at by Ukrainian troops while they dig mass graves to put the bodies of _other_ Ukrainian civilians who died being forced to dig trenches.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and deported to what are literally called ‘re-education’ camps within Russia- hastily made prisons built out of former convention centres, and the like. There are dozens of reports of them being forced to listen to the Russian national anthem on repeat, being forbidden to speak Ukrainian, being told their parents abandoned them, etc. Do you not know just how many people… children, even… report not just witnessing torture take place, but _being_ tortured, personally? The sheer rate of human right abuses in these ‘re-education camps’ is actually fucking unfathonable.
There are _dozens,_ fucking _dozens_ of cases of them launching missiles at civilian structures, and then launching a _second_ missile roughly 30 minutes after. All the time. Over and over and over again. This is clearly an attempt to kill firefighters and medical workers- it’s called a ‘double-tap’ strike. Torture chambers are found en-masse wherever Ukraine liberates territory. I know of videos of fucking _children,_ crying, while confessing to having been tortured there. Apparently, the torture rooms for _children_ are just the same as the others… with the exception that they have _carpet._ That’s the difference. I remember reading testimony (from a fucking _child,_ my god), about a guy he saw hanging from the ceiling, suspended by hooks in his body, with blood pooling half an inch deep on the floor.
We have mass graves filled with literally hundreds of civilian bodies, many with their hands bound, being found in liberated territories. Bucha wasn’t the only massacre… it’s just the most well-known. Every other day we detect a new one that wasn’t there yesterday suddenly appearing in the occupied territories- ominously filled in holes in church yards and stuff. We see them appear on satellite feed. How do you explain a hole in the ground filled with 500 dead civilians… curiously, where 95% of which were women? Ages ranged from 80 year old grandmas to 6 year old girls. I’ve literally seen fucking photos of it.
There are videos, made by Russian soldiers, of them openly laughing about the war crimes they have committed. We have leaked footage of a Russian teleconference call literally discussing the logistics of kidnapping children. Russian state-owned media regularly features people openly advocating for the deliberate murder of literally millions of Ukrainians. I remember one clip I watched of someone suggesting Russian soldiers systematically drown Ukrainian children in the Dnipro river. Putin literally denies the existence of a Ukrainian identity.
An article was published exactly 48 hours after the start of the war, on the dot, by Russian state-owned media. It called for, quote, the ‘liquidation’ of the Ukrainian leadership; referred to, quote, the ‘Ukrainian Question’ (sound familiar?); and celebrated the assimilation and obliteration of Ukrainian culture. An exact quote is ‘did the old fools at Berlin and Paris think Kyiv would forever remain out of Russian hands? That the Russians would forever remain a divided people?’. Said article was taken down a few hours later, so clearly it was leaked by accident. Thankfully, it’s available on the Internet archive.
It also talked about Ukraine in past-tense, so it was likely published automatically, and intended to as a celebration for when Russia conquered Ukraine, which explains the to-the-minute perfect timing. It also just goes to show they really did intend to conquer Ukraine in mere days. Which makes sense, we found parade uniforms in the 60 kilometer long tank column that rode in a straight line directly towards Kyiv from the minute the war began, after all. You know, the one Ukraine blunted entirely?
We have over a dozen instances of Ukrainian soldiers being castrated- one of them was caught on video, for the love of god. There is literally a fucking example of Ukrainian civilians being murdered in a literally fucking gas chamber by a Russian general. But it’s just the one example, so no biggie, right? There were photos that surfaced of a Ukrainian soldier, whose head was _fucking decapitated and impaled upon a stick_ outside of Bakhmut. They literally _directly_ struck a tiny, 5x5 meter large _Holocaust Memorial,_ in the middle of an empty field, with no other buildings of any kind around for _ten miles._ It was just a small circle with a statue in the middle, dedicated to a massacre that occurred in that very field, miles away from civilization. It was less than five meters wide, and yet the _very top of the statue_ was _directly_ struck by a _precision guided missile,_ blowing it to pieces. A fucking _Holocaust Memorial._
What does all that tell you?
So he has two independent arguments for ATTACKING Ukraine and then cries when Ukraine wants to join a defensive alliance. Hilarious.
Oh yeah, the defensive alliance that bombed Serbia and Libya.
@@whatslifespurpose so long as Angelic Putin isn’t planning an ethic cleansing or persisting with violence in contravention of UN authority, yep, defensive.
@@whatslifespurpose
Defending others from aggression is still defence.
@@jakel8627with that logic you can justify anything
Libya was mostly a Franco-British job, just like Iraq was a mostly Anglo-American job. Other NATO members were not necessarily involved.
Belgrade is inexcusable, however.
Just checked out your video titles and I’m blown away. You got me hooked upon your way of thinking!
On the subject of whether Putin has a good reason or not , let's say that when Iraq was invaded by the allied forces on false pretenses by Colin Powell (that will follow me to the grave), killing half a million iraqi soldiers right there on fabricated reasons, that also opened the Pandora's box that any reason will do as long as you're the king of the jungle. The 3 kings of the jungle who control the nuclear strike from any place in any shape of form happen to be the US, Russia and China. Keep that in mind when dealing with a world with an opened Pandora's box !!!! If u've never heard of Nira's testimony, here's a link . ruclips.net/video/FOjGN9TGgRo/видео.html
yeah but nobody sanctions US for that.... or even say something that is the difference
@@tomassterancak Because they control the MSM, the propaganda machine of the West !!!
If you consider how bad it worked out for the US, it should be seen as a warning. Not an open invitation to invade who you want.
@@floydwhatchacallit6823 If Russia was able to influence Cuba to allow the russians to install hypersonic missiles on the island, would the US just sit back and watch thinking well, last time we invaded Afghanistan or Vietnam, it didn't work out very well for us and we'll just wait and see if the russians have the balls to do that. Or switch Cuba for Mexico and you get the idea of why Russians had to invade Ukraine. THat's when you understand the meaning of unspoken red lines. eg Taiwan is another red line. Red lines are emotional issues and has nothing to do with logical outcomes. Do you think Mexico or Cuba is a red line for the US ?
@@tomassterancak That's not entirely true: many European countries said something against US reasoning for this war. Like France and Germany for example. They also refused to join the US in this invasion. The US started this war without their approval and support and without NATO. Remember, only the US and UK went through with this.
But it was impossible for the ones who resisted the US call for arms, to debunk the faked material and falsified "evidence" by the US, because they rely on the same intelligence reports through NATO structures. Own reports were sparse but already draw a different picture, compared to what the US claimed. The second most reliable source of intel in this region is coming from the UK. And they backed the US in everything.
There is no way to impose sanctions on the US, an ally and friend of most western nations, when you're lacking any hard evidence against their claims. The result was only visible after the war was ended and the supposed bases and factories were obviously never there. At least the US didn't try to fake stuff at this point. Putin himself said, that he would have done so, if he was in the US position instead.
The real scandal here is, that the US was never judged for this. The UN should have brought judgment over their wrong actions here. They never paid reparations and the responsible people are still free, instead of being thrown in jail.
So why does our country the USA need to be involved? I guess we are the benevolent big force that can stand up to Putin when he is feeling threatened and goes on the attack of a sovereign country. They need help. Who else will help? Where is NATO in all this?
03:50 Actually, this was basically the war of 1812
Glad someone pointed out.... The British would’ve certainly reclaimed Js had they hv the power to do so
War of 1812 was started by the USA, not the UK. Various hawks and expansionists thought it would be a good opportunity to take Canada while Britain was occupied with Napoleon, plus they were annoyed at the Royal Navy's impressment of American sailors captured at sea, which is reasonable. Britain responded but not with much force as it couldn't spare them from Europe; instead the conflict was the making of Canada as local militias in conjunction with Native groups responded more decisively to the threat.
I think you're not correctly evaluating the "opportunity for negotiation" that Putin had. He warned, in 2007, that the red line would be Georgia and Ukraine. from back then until this very year the west and Russia has been manipulating Ukraine's politics. I mean there is a record of Hilary Clinton literally choosing who's going to be minister of what in Ukraine, like " no I don't like that guy because (whatever), I prefer that guy " and so on. That's when Putin triggered the low key war that had been playing until the full on invasion. But we kept pushing for years and somehow Russia grew tired of us not listening to the "please stop expanding NATO" demands. Putin is the one that invaded but we clearly pushed them to do so. It is amazing how we continuously fail to see our faults up to a point where it's pathetic. But the real problem is that it makes sure that we'll fight until the last Ukrainian.
Our elite play lots of these games behind closed doors that the American Public is never made aware of
To be fair, this could've been handled with diplomacy if both sides agreed to stay away from Ukraine and leave it independent.
@@artorhenThe Ukrainian parliament wanted to approach the EU. President Yanukovytch refused after pressure from Putin. This led to a series of riots.
You know Russia has (according to the United Nations) destroyed or, quote, ‘damaged beyond repair’ roughly _80-95%_ of all the buildings in the city of Mariupol? Within the first three months of the war? That was a city with a pre-war population greater than 39/50 U.S _state capitals._ And it’s just fucking gone. It got Dresden’d. It got Hamburg’d. Berlin’d, Warsaw’d, Stalingrad’d, Rotterdam’d, fucking _Hiroshima’d._ It’s just gone.
Over 200 schools were hit within the first _three months_ of the war. The United Nations estimates over _10,000 cases of rape._ Civilian casualties likely exceed the amount of people that have died in fucking _Gaza,_ for goodness sake. We have _dozens_ of cases, all spread out, of Russian soldiers firing upon civilian vehicles. Kharkiv has been struck with over a _dozen_ missile strikes _every single day_ for over a _year_ now, almost all of which go on to strike purely civilian targets. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of the 4th of April, 2024, Russia has bombed roughly ~1,682 hospitals and healthcare facilities in Ukraine. Over _1,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities._ Like, holy fucking shit.
Ukrainian POWs are being released severely malnourished and mistreated. I watched a video of over a hundred Ukrainian POWs exiting a bus after finally arriving back in Ukraine following a prisoner swap, and I do not exaggerate when I say that every single one of them looked like they just walked out of fucking _Auschwitz._ I’m serious. I actually went and compared real photos of Auschwitz prisoners out of disbelief, and I’m dead serious when I say they looked almost identical.
Russia has been deliberately targeting energy infrastructure throughout the winter, and almost every single fucking day they hit another apartment complex. The global community overwhelmingly agrees they have been, and currently are, targeting highway intersections at rush hour. They are also being tried for simply fighting- which is a war crime. So is driving around in vehicles marked as ambulances, but we have photos of Russia doing that. We have Ukrainian civilians being forced to wear Russian uniforms so they get shot at by Ukrainian troops while they dig mass graves to put the bodies of _other_ Ukrainian civilians who died being forced to dig trenches.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and deported to what are literally called ‘re-education’ camps within Russia- hastily made prisons built out of former convention centres, and the like. There are dozens of reports of them being forced to listen to the Russian national anthem on repeat, being forbidden to speak Ukrainian, being told their parents abandoned them, etc. Do you not know just how many people… children, even… report not just witnessing torture take place, but _being_ tortured, personally? The sheer rate of human right abuses in these ‘re-education camps’ is actually fucking unfathonable.
There are _dozens,_ fucking _dozens_ of cases of them launching missiles at civilian structures, and then launching a _second_ missile roughly 30 minutes after. All the time. Over and over and over again. This is clearly an attempt to kill firefighters and medical workers- it’s called a ‘double-tap’ strike. Torture chambers are found en-masse wherever Ukraine liberates territory. I know of videos of fucking _children,_ crying, while confessing to having been tortured there. Apparently, the torture rooms for _children_ are just the same as the others… with the exception that they have _carpet._ That’s the difference. I remember reading testimony (from a fucking _child,_ my god), about a guy he saw hanging from the ceiling, suspended by hooks in his body, with blood pooling half an inch deep on the floor.
We have mass graves filled with literally hundreds of civilian bodies, many with their hands bound, being found in liberated territories. Bucha wasn’t the only massacre… it’s just the most well-known. Every other day we detect a new one that wasn’t there yesterday suddenly appearing in the occupied territories- ominously filled in holes in church yards and stuff. We see them appear on satellite feed. How do you explain a hole in the ground filled with 500 dead civilians… curiously, where 95% of which were women? Ages ranged from 80 year old grandmas to 6 year old girls. I’ve literally seen fucking photos of it.
There are videos, made by Russian soldiers, of them openly laughing about the war crimes they have committed. We have leaked footage of a Russian teleconference call literally discussing the logistics of kidnapping children. Russian state-owned media regularly features people openly advocating for the deliberate murder of literally millions of Ukrainians. I remember one clip I watched of someone suggesting Russian soldiers systematically drown Ukrainian children in the Dnipro river. Putin literally denies the existence of a Ukrainian identity.
An article was published exactly 48 hours after the start of the war, on the dot, by Russian state-owned media. It called for, quote, the ‘liquidation’ of the Ukrainian leadership; referred to, quote, the ‘Ukrainian Question’ (sound familiar?); and celebrated the assimilation and obliteration of Ukrainian culture. An exact quote is ‘did the old fools at Berlin and Paris think Kyiv would forever remain out of Russian hands? That the Russians would forever remain a divided people?’. Said article was taken down a few hours later, so clearly it was leaked by accident. Thankfully, it’s available on the Internet archive.
It also talked about Ukraine in past-tense, so it was likely published automatically, and intended to as a celebration for when Russia conquered Ukraine, which explains the to-the-minute perfect timing. It also just goes to show they really did intend to conquer Ukraine in mere days. Which makes sense, we found parade uniforms in the 60 kilometer long tank column that rode in a straight line directly towards Kyiv from the minute the war began, after all. You know, the one Ukraine blunted entirely?
We have over a dozen instances of Ukrainian soldiers being castrated- one of them was caught on video, for the love of god. There is literally a fucking example of Ukrainian civilians being murdered in a literally fucking gas chamber by a Russian general. But it’s just the one example, so no biggie, right? There were photos that surfaced of a Ukrainian soldier, whose head was _fucking decapitated and impaled upon a stick_ outside of Bakhmut. They literally _directly_ struck a tiny, 5x5 meter large _Holocaust Memorial,_ in the middle of an empty field, with no other buildings of any kind around for _ten miles._ It was just a small circle with a statue in the middle, dedicated to a massacre that occurred in that very field, miles away from civilization. It was less than five meters wide, and yet the _very top of the statue_ was _directly_ struck by a _precision guided missile,_ blowing it to pieces. A fucking _Holocaust Memorial._
What does all that tell you?
quick question "Where on earth do these logics go when Israel is being questioned?" You can question every religion(blasphemy), ideology(shraiah laws), people(American presidents), country (Russia) but its absolutely horrendous when u start to question Israel.
No it's not. It's probably the most criticised country after the US.
And Islam is basically not part of public discourse or questioned, at least in western countries, because they think pointing out the obvious flaws of it would be racist.
Great video, as usual! Keep it up! This kind of thinking is so useful in our world!
Even a smart guy like him can get hoodwinked by fake news. He is wtong from 7min
For the real facts
The Grayzone with Aaron Mate
The New Atlas by Brian Berletic
John Mearsheimer (watch him first)
Patrick Lancaster war journo in Donbass utube(his vids are difficult to watch)
Graham Phillips in Donbadd
George Galloway
I wiill try to pist sone links in next comment but most if nit all will be deleted by waartube
Dozens killed by cluster bomb in Donbass
ruclips.net/video/ANNhDKGjNK8/видео.html
Scott Ritter
ruclips.net/video/OSkpIq3T-Zc/видео.html
1min civilians who tried to evacuate were shot
ruclips.net/video/F3dv8Xxo0-Q/видео.html
DW deutsch 2mar2017
Azov in ukraine
ruclips.net/video/aXm_DyZJKZ4/видео.html
Nice, concise analysis
NO. Russian psychological insecurity does not justify invading surrounding countries to gain defensive geography. No one is invading Russia. Russia has poor performance record improving wherever they invade.
To your (or Putin's) first point, that Ukraine is a historical mistake... If Ukraine did not become such a nuisance to Russia (or should we say Russian power elites) in the past 20-30 years then Russia cold have very well overlooked this historical "mistake". Putin's claim to Ukraine as a historical mistake is just one of many justifications. Had Ukraine not been flirting with NATO and the West, Russia could have easily co-existed with the said historical "mistake". It was just too dangerous (politically speaking) for Russia's power elites, to have such a huge territory to its South Western border that is essentially antagonistic to Russia's ruling elites. Even Crimea would remain Ukrainian had Ukraine not have the Maidan revolution and threatened to cancel Russia's Black Sea Naval fleet leasing agreement.
Antony Blinken: "There is no change, there will be no change." Jan 26th 2022
Doesn't get any clearer than that
Yeah if you think people can read minds. Are you drunk?
pretty good video. I do believe it's important to articulate precisely why Russia is in the wrong, rather than concluding that instinctively.
hoverever, there are a few corrections I'd like to make:
1) there was no civil war in Ukraine. a certain part of the population used to be pro-Russian, and some of them joined up with Russian invaders - but that's it. mere presense of collaborators and turncoats does not make them into full-fledged side of the conflict. those so-called seperatists never existed outside of Russian command structure.
2) NATO can't expand unless Russia threatens its neighbors - case in point, Sweden and Finland decided to join only after seeing what Russia did to Ukraine. meanwhile, Ukraine would've never been accepted into NATO while having unresolved terriotrial disputes over Crimea and Donbass (not to mention that Ukraine itself only started moving into the direction of joining NATO because of the Russian threat). therefore, Russia's NATO argument is based on circumstances that they themselves caused, thus it's not a valid justification for war, just like their other arguments.
This.
No. Russia was wrong.
What about Minsk agreements. Could you please explain them
Wow, the third argument can actually draw parallels to the Cuban Missile Crisis! If the US had violently invaded Cuba as a resolution that crisis, it would have been the same thing as what Russia is doing now. Back then, we accused Russia of threatening our national security.
Actually USA first set the missiles in Turkey, which everyone skips to mention. USSR did this in retaliation
I don't agree with Russia invading Ukraine. But, if is true that the NATO didn't take Russia seriously until they started mobilizing their army... I think that we have an important issue on global diplomacy.
I'm a Ukrainian from Donbas, east of Ukraine. I appreciate your efforts made for this video and the points mentioned. I also want to quickly say in regards of this map: 4:05. It doesn't show a divide between Ukrainians, nor it shows even divide between the east ond the west of Ukraine. It's just a picture published by somebody on Russian social media which roughly shows Ukrainians speaking Russian language VS Ukrainians speaking Ukrainian. While language never stops to be a big part of the debates within Ukraine, it was never such a big issue to start a war within. What happened is the other Russian invasion which they covered as a "civil war" proclaiming that they are doing that to save the "Russian speaking people", me including.
While being born in Donetsk region, I fluently spoke Ukrainian and Russian (the second was used more frequently as my region has been under Russian rulership for a very long time before we gained independence). That being said, I was never ever oppressed just because of the language I spoke. Russia exaggerated the "language issue" to absurdity just so they could invade us in 2014 (adding some other stupid "reasons" on the fly).
I still remember those weird people with different accent of Russian walking around the streets of my city with weapons that year. Nobody could understand what was going on. It never felt like a civil war no matter how hard Russians tried to create an image of such on their media. I literally want to vomit every time somebody says that was a civil war
But the majority voted for seperation from ukraine. I dont know if same could ve said for jews or tartar etc others who did not have stake in the situation.
30 years of constant brainwashing is taking it's tall...First of all, not Russia exaggerated the "language issue" to absurdity in order to invade you in 2014, but the US-Puppepts in Kiev when they had their first illegal(unconstitutional) meeting after the Coup in Kiev organised & paid by the CIA & carried out by NAZIS (Radical Ethnic-Chauvinists & Ukro-Supremacists) their first wish was to forbid the Russian language in Ukraine, which the CIA-Puppet Tourchinov vetoed against, but it was still pushed through by the pathetic beggars, liars & assholes Poroshenko & Zelensky in 2019 & 2021 meaning that the ethnic Russians in the Ukraine didn't have the same legal rights as the rest of the population. The Ukrainian "Elites" being not the most sincere or intelligent people in the Post-Soviet Realm, even invented a bullshit category of "Native Ethnicities" for the Ukraine of which of course Russians were excluded..The Russian Language when used by authorities & institutions personell as in media & publications is illegal, although 16 000 000(including 9 000 000 ethnic Russians) Ukros have declared it as their native tong...One can publish a book in pure Portuguese or Catalan in the Ukraine but not in Russian without adding a state-approved & legalised translation...We in Western Europe BTW call such a thing APARTHEID, how are you calling it? What you wanted to quickly say in regards of this map: 4:05 is Bullshit, it's not some map posted by a random Russian guy, but the map of distribution of the people who identify as ethnic Russians & that map also resembles almost exactly the distribution of votes during the last real democratic elections before the Junta in Kiev excluded more than 7 000 000 voters from the democratic process...this exclusion of the ethnic Russians from the democratic process was also one of the main reasons why the US Empire broke the Budapest Memorandum & destabilised the Ukraine through the extremely violent Maidan-Coup & the following "Anti-Terror-Operation" where NAZI Militia units like AZOV, Aidar, Right Sector, Dnipro etc. financed by Jewish Oligarchs like the mobster Kolomoisky & supported by regular Ukrainian Forces & aviation began a large scale Terror campaign against their own ethnic Russian civilians...The Russian military helped the Russian Civilians with the same right under which the US Military & NATO is helping now Kiev & under which the US destroyed Lebanon, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya & Syria or how Georgia illegally invaded South Ossetia in 2008...
In the early 1990s Gorbachev warned us about the eventual reckoning that would follow NATO expansion to the east. He was accurately prescient.
Great video. It would have been nice to include the "de-nazification" comment Putin made and if there was any justification. There appears to be a strong far right element in Ukraine as seen by the treatment of black students who were stopped from leaving during the invasion.
The so called by russian propaghanda "strong far right element" didn't take any seat in Ukrainian parliament on 2019 election. They gathered less then 5 % of support in Ukraine. So that's definitely fake narration to "justify" de facto imperialistic invasion of the sovereign country.
I'd like to have heard about the Minsk accord and the Ukrainian coup.
Is that because it distracts from Putin's own words and actions?
Can you correct the part where you said negotiations failed? Because there have been multiple treaties that delayed this invasion from 2014 to 2022. Additionally, the U.S. refused to negotiate in good faith since December 2021. And basically responded by sending more troops and arming Ukraine.
The very notion that the biggest nuclear state in the world felt "threatened" by a defensive alliance is so laughable i'm not exactly sure why it was adressed. Pure boring propaganda
@@hellfire6714 Why does the U.S. feel threatened by middle eastern countries on the other side of the planet. Iraq's invasion was not justified at all. Same foes for Russia, except unlike Iraq, Ukraine borders it. Additionally, Ukraine has historical ties with Russia. The U.S. has no historical ties with Iraq. The U.S. also invaded many Mexican states. Now the Mexicans themselves are considered alien in those lands. People forget that most southern states belonged to Mexico.
@@F_imperialists The year is 2022. The conflict is Ukraine - Russia. You got the wrong video if your mind is on Iraq. Also the "my great great great grandpa set foot here once so it belongs to me forever" mindset is what is killing the Balkans and a lot of other areas - argument built for those of low iq and high agression.
@@hellfire6714 You have to see the big picture. This conflict started in 2014. Please read the treaties between Russia and the west since then. This was long overdue mainly because of negotiations. And no, 1 million Iraqi died because of the U.S. invasion. We will not forget. If the U.S. will never forget 3000 in 9/11, then you should understand how much more pain the death of 1 million causes. Recently, the U.S. sent troops to Somalia again. This is 2022, the U.S. is still doing what it does best.... Invade and murder.
@@F_imperialists This conflicted, much every other Russian imperialist conflicted, started the moment an ex soviet state tried to poke it's head out of the gutter. Your "bigger picture" is bigger than you think. Russians think they own everything in the general area of their country. And I do mean OWN. This is a mindset you can only really understand by seeing it first hand
Does Mexico have the sovereign rights to form an alliance with Russia? This means Russia would train Mexico's military and supply arms to Mexico. Would we allow this to happen? To the outside world, the truth of the matter is most believe we are largely responsible for the conflict, unfortunately.
You're making some unequal comparsions here. Cuba, for example, was an ally of the Soviet Union and the US finally did act, when they were about to station nuclear weapons on Cuba against the USA.
NATO never put nuclear weapons on Ukraine soil, nor was this even considered.
@@dnocturn84 And yet, Cuba has been under crippling sanctions for the last 70+ years in order to pressure them to change their regime to one the US would like better, and let's not even forget the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista that Castro overthrew. Sure, the US hasn't invaded Cuba, but it also hasn't exactly been nice and friendly to it, either.
Can't be anymore right....tye west can do anything and it's just but when russia or china does something similar its wrong. No one takes about the lives of millions westerns cook everyday.
Actually when you look at the map of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, Ukraine should be smaller than it is.
You need to be very careful about the term 'ethnic Russians'.
Just because a Ukrainian citizen speaks Russian as their language of choice does not necessarily mean they want their land to become part of Russia.
There were no separatist movements until Putin started sponsoring militant groups in 2014.
Sorry, but if we start redefining borders by ethnic lines, it's going to get terrible. Just look at the South East Europe for example. The idea that all members of one ethnic group have to live in one country is fascist.
More than 3 reasons of
course... another being that Putin has said in numerous venues over many years that he wants (paraphrasing) to restore Russia to its former (pre-1989) glory.
*Don't know if this has been already covered - haven't reviewed all the comments. I do know that Ryan was quite structured up front about his parameters for this informative segment.
No he hasn't, unless you willfully ignore the context. I follow his speeches and q&a sessions and he clearly states that although the breakup was traumatic any wish to recreate the empire is stupid. So please provide a link that includes full context.
Didn't the Soviet Union declare that Ukraine was its own country when they insisted it have its own UN seat?
There was an agreement that NATO would not move towards Russia when the wall came down
So I painted a friends place just now and watched your whole channel up to this video. I found you by wanting to know more precisely what fascism was since people on the left and the right both like to throw that term around. Great work!
-one of your newest subs
Regarding the argument of being threatened by NATO, I think we have to ask whether anyone reasonable could think that is a credible threat? Look how the US struggled and lost in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Look how Russia struggles in eastern Ukraine. How could NATO possibly consider invading Russia? You have to ignore the enormous nuclear arsenal, assume that the founding articles of NATO (that it is no threat to Russia) is an elaborate conspiracy between dozens of democratic nations, assume that the leaderships of all these countries are united in a fanatical desire to conquer the largest country on earth and somehow their electorates didn't notice, that the billion citizens of NATO would ever allow such a thing to threaten their lives and livelihoods. In my opinion it's ludicrous to imagine NATO would invade Russia, and we should not give credence to that as a justification for anything.
Agreed. NATO has and always will be a counterweight to imperialist intentions in Europe - including by the way those former imperialists within the alliance. Never has almost every smaller nation in Europe been allied in this way with a few superpowers included to add teeth. The only threat it poses to Russia is its imperialist ambitions. Which most of Eastern Europe is all too familiar with and doesn’t want to go back to.
"How could NATO possibly consider invading Russia?"
That is a great question. Russia has always kept to itself (not counting the recent events), yet NATO is constantly threatening Russia but expanding to it's near countries, trying to destabilize Rússia internally or just in general partaking into aggressive rhetoric.
We all know the west hates Russia, always did and always will apparently, so yeah, disappearing with Russia is westerners wet dreams ever since the red scare.
You have to ask yourself why John McCain was in Ukraine in 2014, why is Bidens whole family involved with Ukraine.
Maybe as someone from inside those countries, you don't easily notice such imperialistic moves like what happened in Ukraine in 2014, but I'm from Latin America and I know. As they say, we are "vaccinated" against this kind of stuff.
We can see western imperialism from miles away. And that's what NATO is: a bully, an aggressor who pretends to be the innocent.
@@devrusso a "nato is evil" argument doesn't address the point I was making that it is obviously not a threat to Russia. So using it as an excuse to wage war is disgusting. But there are so many like you blinded by hate that malign dictators literally get away with mass murder.
While invading and conquering is not feasible today there are other threats worth considering. Missile strikes, no-fly zones, port blockades and so on. And your whole argument about "elaborate conspiracy between dozen democratic nations", "fanatical desire" can be translated into "we are the good guys, we won't do bad things". Once one side obtains a leverage over other the rhetoric may and will be quickly changed to we "have the leverage and we can use it against you".
Oh and electorate would not notice, they would gladly choose smaller threat of a "swift conflict today" once they are explained to about the big global threat that Russia is. It is the same rhetoric at work in Russia today: "yes we face hard times today, but it is to ensure our security in the future".
Question: Imagine in 50 years, Eastern ally were about to deploy strategic weaponry in Canada. How will the US justify its actions? (I'm assuming the US will take actions immediately considered what happened in Cuba between USSR and US)
If the answer is negative, the next question is -- are the justifications even necessary in international political situations that endanger great power's national security?
Russia already has 2 NATO countries on its border. If it takes control of Ukraine then it will border 6 NATO countries.
@@joedirt2862 It's a great point! I think that Estonia and Latvia are different from Ukraine in terms of geographical significance from military / security point of view. By pulling out the map, we can see that if Ukrain joins NATO, there's no geographical / natural barrier beyond Dnieper River which is the divider of west and east of Ukraine. Russia clearly cares east Ukraine much more.
@@NeMayful Ukraine isn't
Part of NATO though. So he is infact creating a situation that doesn't exist.
@@NeMayful I think the idea of mutually assured destruction has a serious flaw besides the mutual destruction. That is it's only a deterrent between two countries with nukes. However a country with nukes can invade a country without nukes and only face the retaliation of another country if that country is willing to sacrifice the human race for them. Putin's threat and lack of any country stepping in suggests this is true.
@@joedirt2862 True that Ukraine is not a formal member of NATO, and this is the whole point. From Russia's point of view, Ukraine is a de-facto NATO member - trained and armed by NATO. If Russia waited the moment that Ukraine to become a formal member of NATO, it is already too late -- that will mean to declare a war with all NATO members.
I love it that you are teaching civics, something that is severely needed in USA as our people throw around terms like Nazi and fascist without knowing what it means.
I think you made some good points however you didn't talk about the geopolitics. How the Americans and their European counterparts meddled in Ukrainian politics. How ursula von der leyen her self admitted that the Minsk agreement was a lie, how they have been preparing for a war with Russia. Please talk about the whole situation and bring light to it. Because a lot of people are just listening to western propaganda and not doing their history research.
Unfortunately, its common for the US not to negotiate before military action. Some examples are when Russia tried reducing the amount of nuclear weapons in Europe during the cold war, Sadam before he invaded Keweit which he was given the green light by washington, or with the Talaban negotiating a trial of Bin Laden before the world court.
We have to take these instances and many more into account when deciding if Putin's negotiation would be taken seriously by the US when it historically tends to prefer war.
HR needs to send someone over to do ergonomics assessment on Putin's workstation @1:26 how can the man work like that?
Good presentation however, it would be more complete if you mentioned the 2014 overthrow of the government and the Minsk agreements.
Putin spelled out his reasons in his 5,000 word essay you mention. He considers Ukraine to be part of Russia. And he would do so regardless of the existence of NATO.
As a Russian, everything Putin says is not a justification but an excuse.
As a Russian, everything Putin says is a should-be obvious fact
His speech definitely sounds like he's trying to justify the unjustifiable.
@@icarusmakarov9365 just don't fact check him and you should be fine.
It's great to hear a fresh and non emotionally charged take on this topic.
"one country can't justify the invasion of another, just because they believe the government is aggressive in its civil conflict..." ahh, very true words that should be adhered by all...
Should have flown a plane into a tower first I guess, right?
Ironically for most part of history this kind of justification is very common, especially on religious grounds, and not until Westphalia when countries start to recognise the idea of non-intervention.
@@fsdds1488it has largely done by western countries in 20th/21th
Re; "Was Russia Justified to Invade Ukraine?"
It's NOT a case of 'justification' but a case of national survival.
When societies are confronted with an existential national security threat, national survival requires a response. Russia has for decades been warning the US led NATO that NATO's eastward expansion is seen by Russia an an unacceptable threat because once NATO is sitting upon Russia's doorstep, it would create a degree of military vulnerability that no nation would willingly agree to, given that nuclear armed cruise missiles fired from near the Ukraine/Russian border would reach Moscow in less than 13 minutes. Plus, given cruise missiles ability to fly below radar detection, Russia might not know it was under attack until just seconds before nuclear detonation over Moscow. It matters not whether NATO would ever launch such an attack, national security demands that Russia never allow itself to be put in that potentially vulnerable of a position. Which is WHY the US was ready to go to war when the Soviet Union put nuclear ICBMs in Cuba, just 90 miles off the Florida coast.
There was no such threat though. It is possible that Russians feel threatened, but doesn't mean it's true. Facts don't care about your feelings, and there is no reason to believe that NATO would attack Russia. First of all Russia has nukes, and no country with nukes got invaded so far. Second if all, the time of Natos existence is the time where Russia has been invaded the least in its history, and NATO was shrinking a it's militaries until the invasion, and even longer while they tried to get piece diplomatically.
Btw. The reason why countries join NATO is because of Russia's behaviour, and it's threats. NATO only accepting them, when they ran out of reasons of why not.
Where is the threat here, that is supposedly so big Russia had to invade and destroy a country, that wasn't even part of NATO, nor close to joining them, and couldn't have done so itself if it wanted to and Russia didn't have nukes?
Didn’t Ukraine overwhelmingly vote in a referendum to stay in the Soviet Union, but to have it reformed. Whereas the other way was 55% voted for independence to be part of Ukraine?
An interesting analysis flawed by not mentioning to any degree the involvement of the US, UK and EU. The 2014 Ukrainian 'revolution' was a coup d'etat orchestrated by the West; this emboldened far right factions of the government to persecute ethnic Russians in the east which led to Russia annexing Crimea and the start of an 8 year long war in the Donbass where 15,000 people died. Russia didn't start a war, they went in to stop one.
The real war is the USA seeking global supremacy and fighting Russia using Ukraine as the weapon. Thing is, the US is losing.
Never let what you are hoping to happen cloud your judgement to the point where you believe that's what actually happening.
@@klauswigsmith Ditto.
were those ukrainians who died in the revolution all CIA actors?
@@yeehaw9303 *Coup d'etat
Russia was every bit as justified to invade Ukraine as Germany was to invade Poland in 1939. And the result will be the same. Are you listening, Vladimir?
Sevastopol is the key warm water port for Russia's naval surface fleet. That would be another reason why Putin would be very unhappy with Ukraine joining NATO. It wasn't mentioned in the video, and with 1000+ comments, I haven't read enough to see if this was already mentioned.
Crimea is a whole separate case to the "special military operation"...
Crimea is (and I quote Gorbachov) Russia's baby, which was a historical ERROR that was finally corrected in 2014.
@@ABC-ABC1234 I like how you state by yourself that you are simply parroting a russian talking point
@@bool_k It's actually the truth, had you done a bit of basic research, even google or Wikipedia you'd realize that CRIMEA has been in the hands of the Russians for hundreds of years! The English and the Ottomans often plotted to get that piece of strategic land OUT OF the hands of the Russians... They were obsessed with it not to become a part of Russian Empire, unless of course you the Ottomans were in the right and you believe Ottomans were angels, meanwhile those dogs were PLUNDERING villages in the Balkan, forcing them to convert to a religion, STEALING their young men and turning them into elite warriors callied janissaries, and making them fight their own kin etc. etc.
This part of territory Crimea has ALWAYS identified as pro-Russia ALWAYS!!! I don't remember Krushchev handing out a democratic referendum asking the crimeans if they want to belong to the Ukrainian SSR? Granted part of the Soviet Union, but suddenly they woke up part of a different administration?! Sorry, not sorry you need to do your research and condensing that complex and painful part of Russian history into one silly sentence is retarded and obviously gives the impression that someone (YOU!) doesn't understand history. FYI there were Dutch, French, Belgian, German observers when the "vote" happened, they declared the outcome valid but not the options... As if Crimeans would make the ridiculous mistake of ever aligning themselves with Ukraine! Keep dreaming!
B/S Ukraine and Russia already had a negotiation...until the west and NATO squashed it....why? Because it is the west that wants to cripple Russia and have been working towards it since Putin became president...why because Putin would not allow the west to manipulate Russia as Yeltsin did....who has exspanded borders before 2014? Russia?
While I agree that the invasion is not justified, the response has been disproportionate. Given that the various NATO and American invasions of Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003 and Libya 2011 are also not justified and the USA did not face the same criticism and hostile actions as Russia has had to endure, such as sanctions from the rest of the world.
And of course American actions and the response to it sets precedents that other countries act upon. Rules are interpreted not only by what is agreed upon in terms of signed documents but also in terms of what precedents are set by the various actors on the world stage and the response to their actions.
How is it ‘disporportionate’ to heavily sanction a nation for committing genocide?
I advise all to see the Russian movie called "Hatred". It reveals some historical "Skeletons in the closet". The full movie can be seen on RUclips. This story focuses on the western part of Ukraine that became incorporated into Poland prior to WW2. This farming region was a mixture of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews. And since 1917 came under the authority of communist Russia. With the German invasion of Poland in 1939 the ugly conflicts between these cultures came out of the woodwork. The movie starts on a happy note by portraying a wedding. The guests at this celebration are a mixture of the cultures that populate the region. But as the movie goes on, darker and darker conflict is revealed. Until after the last 20 minutes, when the scenes descend into horror. The viewer watches the Ukrainians with the help of the Germans attack and kill their neighbors with a ferocity that is hard to imagine. The ghosts of these events live on into the present as many Ukrainians celebrate those monsters who collaborated with the Nazi's as "National Heroes". And that all they wanted was Ukrainian national sovereignty. With right wing authoritarian movements and militia's increasing in Western Ukraine, it would seem reasonable the pro Russian Eastern Ukraine would become their target. As there would probably be alot of old scores to settle.
Ukraine will never admit to its real roots: killing poles en mass and fighting russia on the germans side, twice. Ukraine was more than happy to send poles and jews to germany.
And completely irrelevant to the generations fighting for power today. History is never a pretext for war but rather a motivation to recruit people to fight. Germany invaded many countries you don't see us fighting about it today because it's irrelevant. Natural gas, oil and industry are the motivations for war. And this conflict is no different. Iraq, Afghanistan (to pressure Saudi through their extremist groups), Syria, proxy war with Iran, proxy war between Russia and NATO. All these conflicts are about money.
@Uhavenoright toask Histroically accurate? So was the Holodomor. The Ukraine was using the Germans to free themselves from the Soviets or more specifically Stalin.
@@evadd2 Well, I'm sure you can explain then why at the exact same time, they were also droughts elsehwere in the world, such as the Dust Bowl in the US Midwest. I guess Stalin had the ability to control the global climate. That's not to say the Soviets didn't commit mistakes and even atrocities when handling the drought, but to present it like some event deliberately engineered to exterminate the Ukrainians is just ridiculous.
@@OBrasilo There are a lot of evidence that famine in 1932-33 was engineered deliberately.
I slightly disagree with your overall evaluation. The last and best argument includes the fact that there are geriatric cold warrior maniacs throughout Western leadership. The US blowing up Nordstream proves this fact. NATO is a scourge that should disband
You say people were willing to negotiate with Russia in the days before the war but Russia was very clear that for negotiations to happen, a guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO had to be on the table. Even until the last day before the war our politicians were calling that an unacceptable demand. We were clearly unwilling to negotiate, our "negotiations" would not have included recognising Crimea as pat of Russia or limiting NATO expansion or allowing greater formal autonomy for Russian breakaway regions. Negotiations are give and take and we were not willing to meet any of Russia's core concerns. When viewed through this lens, we were not so much calling for negotiation as we were commanding Russia to back off and accept the status quo.
It's easy to call for peace and stability when you are on top. Peace and stability in an unfair system just keeps the oppressed from changing their circumstances if those above them are not willing to let them right themselves.
The guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO was certainly not the only demand. Russia sent a list of 9 demands to the U.S., including 1) that Ukraine must not allowed be allowed to join NATO (as mentioned) 2) That NATO may no longer add ANY more countries to itself. 3) That NATO must pull all troops back from all territory that was added post-1991 (meaning effectively a withdraw from Eastern Europe + the Balkans) 4) Russia will only negotiate with the U.S., France, and the U.K., and other NATO members must be excluded from the discussion. All 4 of which are inherently unreasonable. And yes, they are unreasonable, as no country has the right to dictate how two other countries (willingly) act towards each other.
The analogy made England taking back American independence was plainly absurd. America fought a war with the British for its independence a fact that is still celebrated to this day in the USA on July 4th. A much better analogy (including the relative size aspect, might be England and Northern Ireland - 'created' by England in 1921 - that too was a mistake.)
"There has been a sort of messy civil war going on since 2014". A statement which managed to leave out the involvement of the CIA and an American led regime change coup and the imposing of anti Russian penal laws by the puppet Government - Putin remarks concerning this and the incident in Odessa (where rooftop snipers were killing people on both sides in the crowd to cause confusion and panic) were very understated.
The number killed in the Donbass Region before Feb 2022 (15,000 +) but particularly during 2014 (13,000+) support a claim of attempted genocide. There is however no need to justify an 'invasion' of Ukraine on 24th Feb. 2022. The leaders of The People's Republic of Donetsk and The People's Republic of Luhansk (independence having been declared after it was clear that the UN, France and Germany were going to do nothing to enforce the Minsk Accord, which would have left the Donbass Region as a federated part of Ukraine) invited Putin to rescue and relieve their countries, and restore their constitutional borders (the populations of both countries having been driven by siege bombardment over eight years, into small enclaves close to the Russian border - areas referred to as "rebel held" by the western media). The movement beyond the Donbass to destroy the Ukrainian Airforce and various 'fixing' or 'pinning' operations were necessary to make the Donbass secure after it had been taken by what has been no more than an expeditionary force exercise. Putin has not attempted to justify that by pointing out that the Kiev Government had assembled more than 100,000 Ukrainian National Guard troops along 'the line of contact' in the Donbass and it was necessary to isolate them and prevent them from being reinforced. Nor has he made much reference to the fortifications constructed in the Donbass as the Government troops 'dug in' during their occupation of the territory- or indeed to the training and arming of them by the USA.
Thus far the arguments Putin has advanced have been treated in a light and dishonest way - a far cry from "intellectually" - even the source of the paper cited in 'evidence' is not revealed.
NATO. This is the real cause of the other arguments, and with the American openly declaring that they intend to destroy the Russian economy and break the country of Russia into many (perhaps twenty) separate regions, there can be no disputing that Putin has genuine cause for concern - and has had for many years.
His powerful speech in Munich in 2007 (when he said enough is enough when referring to NATO expansion) was totally ignored by 'western governments'. When asked why NATO is being expanded, the answer from 'the west' is always "the threat from Russia" - not from the Communist USSR which ceased to exist in 1991 and was the reason for the creation of the original NATO. NATO has in face more than doubled the number of countries included as members since reason for its existence disappeared. Why? There is an economic threat from Russia (they like the Chinese could become more wealthy than the USA) not a military threat. But how can the USA deal with that when the major source of their wealth is from the sale of armaments? Easy, they make war or threaten war.
The fact that you had to resort to a TeleSur broadcast speaks volumes about the lack of western MSM coverage of the Russian arguments. (not that they justify the invasion though)
Ok : I like your style and presentation .
Perhaps the NATO argument is the strongest .
Question : Why was NATO created and now that the ( Cold WAR ) is over does NATO have a ( mission ).
At the end the ( cold war ) wasn't Russia promised that if they ( peacefully ) withdrew from Eastern Europe, NATO would not extend into Eastern Europe.
That promise was broken . NATO an organization conceived purely as a ( defensive alliance ) in recent years invaded countries that possed not threat to a NATO member.
You are fimular with the ( Monroe doctrine ).
America claims to have the right to get involve in the ( internal affairs ) of any country in the Western Hemisphere if it feels it' s ( national interests ) are threatened.
I don't think I need to remind you how many time in the last 125 years America has invaded countries in the Western Hemisphere / overthrown democraticly elected governments / murdered leaders / imposed ruthless dictators / boycotted / blockaded
countries , all in the name of ( American National Interest) .
Perhaps Russia should sign a ( mutual defence treaty ) with Cuba , like Ukraine it's a sovereign nation and has that right , and you will not disagree that Cuba has just cause for doing so.
America has tried to ( murder ) it leader on numerous times , trained an invading army of ( counter revolutionaries ) boycotted / blockaded Cuba and been hostel in every way possible.
Oh : Cuba did that , remember the ( Cuban missle crisis ) I don't understand Cuba like the Ukraine had every right to form an alliance with Russia
hum : I sense a ( double standard here ) .
Well after a look at NATO' s history of ( aggressive ) military behaviour , since the end of the ( Cold War ) if I was,Putin , I wouldn't want NATO on my border .
Also if the ( Monroe Doctrine ) works for America and the world .
Perhaps Russia should adopt the ( Putin Doctrine ) , if it works for the ( freedom loving / justice seeking ) Democracy of America it works for Russia.
Now if America can tolerated Saudi Arabia, there ( absolute rulers / horrible human rights record / invasion if Neighbor / possession of atomic weapons ) well why have a problem with Russis.
Russia or Soviet Union was not promised by NATO that NATO was not going to expand eastwards. You are most likely getting that from Gorbachev which Gorbachev himself said it was untrue. You are also talking about NATO's aggressive behaviour yet NATO has not invaded any of the countries it currently operates in. Any country that was accepted into NATO was with the consent of that nation as well as every nation in the NATO.
NATO is a defensive allegiance and has not invaded any eastern european nation, as opposed to russia which have invaded georgia and ukraine and threatens to invade many others.
Other whataboutisms are not even worth responding.
Interesting so having NATO troops invade Afghanistan / Libya is not aggressive .
I remember the end of the( cold war ) when Russia peacefully with drew its troops back to Russia. I remember why those troops where in Eastern Europe / ww2 invasion of Russia 25 million Russians died. Does that sound fimular to you.
I do remember the talk in congress of withdrawing troops out of Europe , I do remember the talk in congress of their being no need for NATO , I do remember the talk about the ( peace dividend ) .
As a veteran of 8 years service I followed this closely .
But then the American Defense Industry work loose all those very lucrative contracts .
Death and distraction is quite profitable , so for a while America has no ( evil empire ) to hate.
Strongest rebuttal on here that I have seen.
Of course none of us want Russia to invade Ukraine but we do have to pay attention to what happens in the past as you stated and I heard similar things from a professor as well that support your work.
Every country is looking out for their best interest, it is hard to justify a country can do it while others can’t.
War is almost always impossible to justify but if you truly look with unbiased eyes you can see how Russia can feel they're being cornered. I say this with close friends in Ukraine who are fervently against Russia in every way
Ukraine wasn’t going to join NATO and is one of the poorest country’s in Europe. Russian aggression began when Euromaiden saw the Pro Russian president leave office. They took Crimea because of political opportunism and now they cry that Ukrainians generally don’t like Russia. He brought it onto himself and Russia. What Putin declared in his speech is the excuse he made up in his head to justify what all 17th and 18th century Russian dictators do: cement their legacy through military conquest.
can you blame them? Russia poisoned ukrainian politicians. Assassinated pro ukrainian protestors. Stole the entire island of crimea. Dont get me staryed on the russian genocide of ukrainians in the 1920s and 30s. Ukrain has every reason in the world to want notbing to do with russian government and political sphere!!
Everybody wants to go back in time only as far as it's beneficial to oneself...
11:00 I don't think that a good argument, since the world was "paying attention" to some degree to the situation in the Ukraine for several years now, yet the development has gone steadily against Russian interests. All diplomatic efforts at best stalled that development briefly.
And let's not forget the U.S. involvement in the recent political developments in the Ukraine as documented by the Nuland phone call. How justified were the U.S. kindling the conflict in the Ukraine that led to the present situation. After that Russia was presented with a fait accompli, and Putin didn't want to be presented with another done deal.
Another thing to consider is momentum. The decision to start a large scale conflict like the Ukraine-Russian war isn't as momentous as it seems. The hesitancy of western countries to get involved in that war shows the problem: They first need to get enough backing by their citizens, without that support they will lose power, and that also applies to Putin. But that support will wane over time, so it represents a window of opportunity.
Also the estimate of the geopolitical meaning of the Ukraine should include its economic meaning (a) because of the oil pipelines running through it and maybe more importantly (b) its importance as "breadbasket of Europe".
Note that all of the previous is based on a perspective of "global politics", the same global politics that is the basis for the wars in Irak, Libya, Syria, just to name a few. So while Putin should be condemned for starting that war in Ukraine, the same standards leading to that condemnation should also apply to U.S. and NATO involvements and wars in recent years and even more so in the future.
Condemnation followed very quickly
@@hrogarfyrninga3238 Sadly without effect, and at best sparsely from the established media, which is why, despite some condemnation, U.S. and NATO just did the same over and over again to several coutries.
@@Pengochan The US paid for the war in economic terms (cost them several trillion dollars) and they severely tarnished their reputation with it. They also never launched a full scale invasion and occupation ever since, rather focusing on limited scope military support or operations. Not saying what they're doing is good, however it's something all great powers tend to do. Russia has been doing plenty of that too and there was no big global reaction.
@@hrogarfyrninga3238 The U.S. tax payers paid. A lot of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors made a lot of money (and a part of that money is paid back for political campaigns of Republicans and Democrats alike, even if that's just a small part that results in huge paychecks), but all that is beside the point.
Apparently we agree that starting wars, even despite there may be a dplomatic way to avoid them is part of global politics by global powers. That's not a good thing but sadly reality.
So the question if Putin was "justified" is the wrong question here, and very subjective anyways. The proper question is: What should have been expected of him, could the U.S. and NATO have choosen another course long before to reduce the likelihood of that invasion, and why didn't they?
That Putin / Russia is the main culprit for the invasion is pretty obvious, but how much did the U.S. and NATO contribute to the situation?
@@Pengochan From what I can gather, Putin feels threatened by the mere existence of a Ukraine that isn't politically under is control. Unfortunately for him, Russia signed an agreement guaranteeing its independence. At a time, Ukraine had basically no army, he took away part of its territory. That was the point that showed the world he would take whatever he wanted i it wasn't sufficiently defended.
The only thing that may have stopped him is massive deterrence or the creation of a puppet regime like in Belarus. The latter wasn't an option for the Ukrainians. Since they decided to defend themselves as a sovereign nation and didn't want to align with Russia, I don't see what NATO could have done to prevent this situation.
NATO likely assumed Putin was a rational man and would not attack, considering the size of the Ukrainian army and the scale of its territory. Putin gambled on the assumptions he made according to the information given to him, both were flawed. Additionally, he has certain beliefs about Russia's history and it's place in the world that don't align with reality. Invading for him also helped seize back power he had lost within the regime. I don't know what kind of deterrents would have needed to be in place for Putin not to take this step.
In his mind, he would easily and quickly have overrun Ukrainian defences, taken Kiev, captured Zelensky and installed a puppet regime before anyone could have intervened in time.
Baltic states are already NATO members. They have similar or even closer distance to major Russian cities like Moscow and St Petersburg.
Thank you. This channel gets right to the geopolitical meat. Nice and concise!