- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reaffimed his firm refusal to cede any territory, resisting U.S. pressure for a painful compromise with Russia as he continued to rally European support for Ukraine.
“Undoubtedly, Russia insists for us to give up territories. We, clearly, don’t want to give up anything. That’s what we are fighting for,” Zelenskyy said in a WhatsApp chat late Monday in which he answered reporters’ questions.
“Do we consider ceding any territories? According to the law we don’t have such right. According to Ukraine’s law, our constitution, international law, and to be frank, we don’t have a moral right either.”
Fair bit of speculation on Russia’s behalf.
The most important point to keep in mine is that most of the world (ie countries outside of NATO) do not see NATO as a defensive alliance.
We can argue back and forth about whether Russia was justified to start a war over perceived expansion (I don’t believe so) but historical context is important and I don’t think it’s hard to see how they perceived a threat from their geopolitical perspective, especially if even Merkel recognized that.
What offensive war has NATO started?
The bombing of Libya and Yugoslavia?
NATO has not started a war but that is not mutually exclusive from it being perceived as an arm of American imperialism. The general perception is that due to its astronomical defense spending the US has disproportionate influence within the group. There is precedent for NATO countries joining America in unjustified wars previously. This contributes to the perception that, if the US conjures up a reason to go to war with your country, there is a whole club of countries which America may have coercive leverage over (due to defense investment) that may join in seeking to anhilate you.
NATO countries are (or perhaps were) America’s sphere of influence.
Many NATO members contributed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the international legal framework put in place to justify those wars was cited by Putin at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine.
That is such a tenuous connection to make. America’s retarded war on terror was started by America, and some countries that are also in NATO chose to join. All that had nothing to do with NATO, those other countries were not obliged to join, and as you mentioned other NATO members did not.
You can discount it if you like, but if we’re trying to analyze how Russia justifies its invasion and perceives its relationships with other nations, then considering the recent past of various NATO members is relevant.
That’s like saying BRICS is an aggressive organisation because of what Russia is currently doing… Not the same, but in a similar vein. Not all of NATO was involved in Iraq (many countries were opposed to it, and it may as well have been a US only operation). Afghanistan… There technically was a casus belli, but I’ll agree the way the entire thing was handled was a disaster. The occupation following the initial invasion was, notably, a US thing, not a NATO one.
It would be more accurate to compare it to BRICS being adversarial to the US because China has more than 2x the economy of all the other BRICS nations combined and wants to use it as a counterbalance to the G7.
That would be perfectly accurate and the US is actively trying to inhibit the growth of BRICS as an organization.
Well, not really. Russia was not justified in the full-scale unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country.
Putin pretends there’s a threat to expand Russia territory/influence. Russia isn’t existentially threatened, they want to control neighboring regions.
That’s fair, what was meant was whether Russia could feel justified in doing so (from their perspective) in a similar way that America felt justified in its war on Iraq or its posturing for war in Venezuela. All of which are not justified from an objective perspective.