Biden vs Trump 2024 Political Platforms, Policies and Issues

[Bofferbrauer2]

Tober said:

Putin wants a potential threat away from Moskou. All Russian leaders do. Moskou is very close to the Ukraine border. A potential NATO membership is seen as an existential risk by the Russians.

Russia has been invaded twice from the west through the Ukraine plains. By Napoleon and Hitler. Russia wants a buffer zone they control. It's not important to them how they control it. Either by leadership in Ukraine that is loyal to them or control outright. This is the reason Russia through the Soviet Union kept control of Eastern Europe after WW2.

Ukraine leadership was a partner for a long time, until the coup happened that disposed this leadership then pro-EU leadership came into place. This caused Russia first to take Crimea and later escalated to the invasion after the door to NATO was opened to Ukraine.

It's not a movie or video game where the evil one is just evil because "I want to rule the world wra ha ha". Putin does not go about this because he has some dream of Russia taking over Europe just for glory or anything like that. It's 100 millions Russians against 400 million Europeans. That would be impossible. He's looking to restore that buffer zone in some way.

Obviously the invasion is really bad and some other solution needs to be found. The only one I can think of is giving Putin some kind of assurances Ukraine will never join NATO for him to back down. Until then we are in perpetual war.

Moscow is very close to the Ukraine border: As others stated, the Baltic States are just as close, and it's actually easier to get to the Russian capital from there.

Russia has been invaded twise through Ukraine: Yes, because Ukraine was an important asset in both invasions: For Napoleon to feed his troops (at the time, they supplied themselves from the regions they were in, not getting them from home), and Hitler because most of the military production and food was produced in Ukraine prior to the invasion, so invading there would also have knocked out Russian military poduction and supplies if the hadn't moved them to Tankograd in time. Neither had anything to do with distance or defenses, just that going through Ukraine was the most logical in both cases due to their respective stategic needs.

Ukraine leadership was a partner for a long time: Nope, Ukraine was pretty divided between integrating Europe and closer ties with Russia. in fact, pro-Russia and pro-EU leaders succeded each other.

The first president, Leonid Kravchuk, was pro-European. His successor, Leonid Kuchma, was pro-Russia. Kuchma was followed by pro-European Viktor Yushchenko, which got succeded by pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych got deposed because he tried to make a complete U-turn, cancelling existing agreements with the EU in favor of some with the Commonwealth of Independent States led by Russia. He got then succeeded by Pro-European Presidents as the pro-Russian population was for the most part either in the seccession terriotiroes of the Donbas or in the occupied Crimea, so the pro-Russian vote didn't have much weight anymore.

In other words, Putin shot himself in the foot when he supported the separatists and occupied crimea because it meant he coundn't get the rest of Ukraine without force anymore. Hence the invasion 2 years ago.

[Putin]'s looking to restore the buffer zone in some way: He, and by extension his predecessors, could have done so by not pushing their former allies around and dropping them in their times of need. The baltic states applied for NATO membership as soon as they were out of the Soviet Union due to how Russia treated them within the Union. Ukraine had to suffer throught the Holodomor (lit.: death by hunger) during the Soviet Union despite being the breadbasket of the Union. Not exactly the best base for getting under Russia's wing wing again.

Also, with the invasion, Putin utterly failed if he wanted a buffer zone. Like already had been stated before, the distance is pretty much the same from the baltic states, so it was an impossible thing to create to begin with. Worse, with Finland and Sweden joining NATO, he actually lost a lot of buffer and gained 2 strong potential ennemies if he (or a potential successor) starts pushing things too far.

giving Putin some kind of assurances: Ukraine gave away their nukes to Russia under the Russian assurance that they would never attack Ukraine, see where we are now? I wouldn't give any weight to any assurances for Russia to keep them. If Ukraine will not join NATO it just means that Russia could finish at a later date what they started now, but better organized and equipped that time around.