Wait you said Fox? That’s speculation. lol.

Also, yep that’s America, voting for whoever the most popular person votes for. That’s what I call sheeple.

Never shifted a goal post.  Biden evacuated terribly and actually suffered an invasion under his watch.  His track record on the middle east and Ukraine is definitely worse than Trump.  You were the one who started talking buildup so then I addressed that.  Not sorry for not talking about that in saying that the invasion happened under Biden.  If merely addressing your points is now shifting goal posts you're just trying to spin things.

Trump wanted NATO nations to start paying their fair share.  That's it.  If they can't do that it's not an alliance, it's a charity.

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.

What were the chances of of Europe invading Russia?

Also, many countries could conclude that their territories would be safer if they invaded & assimilated neighbouring countries, that doesn't make it morally or ethically correct to do so.

I mean, Putin is cartoonishly evil. He kills or imprisons any & all domestic rivals. He sends scores of his young men into war undertrained & ill-equipped, they're essentially canon-fodder...

Most of his people are dirt poor whilst he and his mates skim the economy to pad their own pockets (did you see the comically over the top residence he's building himself).

He's doesn't even really pretend to preside over a democracy anymore. 

What evidence do you need to conclude that this guy is a nasty piece of shit of the highest order? 

Overall you have to give Biden net credit for pulling out of Afghanistan though right? The resources and American lives saved over the long term will dwarf the lost equipment and casualties suffered from the pull-out. Your hyperfocus on the negative, and much less important part of that story kinda makes you seem bad faith... 

Also, you do know that not everything that happens on the planet revolves around who's in the Whitehouse? 

Can you explain what Trump would have done differently in the wake of Russia invading Ukraine & Hamas' terrorist attack that would have put either of those parties off pursuing their aggressions?

Also, you seem to have conveniently dodged answering the covid question. Trump was in office, so by your logic it was his L right? We all know that China deliberately released it as biological weapon, so perpetrated an act of war on Trump's watch, right? 

The distance between Moscow and the Ukrainian border is similar to the distances between Moscow and the borders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - three NATO member states. Therefore Ukraine potentially joining NATO is not making any difference if someone believes in the pretense that NATO poses a security risk to Russia.

NATO exists since 1947 and has shared a direct border with Russia via Norway since the foundation of this Western defensive alliance. Since it is a defensive alliance, it is no surprise that NATO has not undertaken any invasion in the ~75 years of its existence.

The 27 member states of the European Union (EU) - of whom many are also members of NATO - aren't warmongers either. It's actually the exact opposite where everyone wants to avoid wars in Europe. This attitude is no surprise either, because one of the key reasons to create the EU was to intertwine European states economically in order to greatly reduce the risks of new wars in Europe, a continent which had been plagued by an abundance of wars between its nations for several centuries.

The EU's approach to Russia before the large scale invasion of Ukraine - and even after Russia had already annexed Crimea in 2014 - was to form economical relationships, first and foremost with the purchase of oil and natural gas, but also in the shape of many other things.

So in summary, there was neither an existential threat for Russia in the form of a war nor were there attempts to isolate Russia economically. What did happen though is that the EU wanted Russia to get closer to the European model of democracy with a long term goal of uniting the whole of Europe eventually. This is the true threat to Putin, because a fair democratic process would put him out of power; after all, he has rewritten the Russian constitution a few times already to bundle more power on the Russian president and allow a person to have an unlimited number of terms as president.

Ukraine had put itself on a path to more democracy, similar to the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) which had done that before Putin had any chance to do anything about it. A growing number of former Soviet states pursuing Western ideals could eventually lead to the Russian population asking for the same for their country Russia and that is an existential threat for a dictator. This means the war is not about Russia, it's about Putin.

i am not arguing if Russia's view of seeing NATO a threat is fair or not. I'm just pointing out that Russia does.

At the end of the cold war when soviet union was disbanded there was an agreement that former soviet states would not be joining NATO for the reasons I described before. This did not hold up when various former Soviet Nations did join NATO, obviously making Russian nervous.

Ukraine, to Russia is where the buck stops. And is worth WW3 to them.  If that is fair or not does not matter. This is the situation we are in.

No, that is not it.

And even if that were his only concern, leaving NATO is not the only option. If he feels USA should get more funding, they can scale back some of the outposts, etc.

And again, the notion that Putin would be less likely to attack Ukraine under Trump is beyond insane.

Trump was constantly sucking Putin so hard that he was suspected of being compromised.
He threatened to have USA leave NATO. Undermined US intelligence by proclaimign he believed Putin's word over them, etc.

And once the invasion began, to the surprise of no one, he called Putin a genius, and declared that he would make Putin win the war in 1 day by cutting off all assistance to Ukraine.

None of this excuses the unlawful invasion of another country.

Again, the NATO excuse is Russian propaganda for a domestic audience to eat up and ignite their patriotic spirit to "defend" Russia, they have to sell that Ukraine is an actual threat to them, unfortunately some in the West so easily buy into this propaganda too even though a second of thought being put into it shows you how stupid it actually is.

"Putin wants a potential threat away from Moskou."

Irrelevant. Estonia, Latvia and now Finland all border Russia, are you forgetting how close Estonia and Latvia are in particular to St Petersburg? It may not be Moscow but it is still a vital city for Russia. Should Poland invade Kaliningrad because its too close to Warsaw and also housing nuclear weapons and the HQ of Russia's Baltic Fleet?

How do you also justify with this logic, why Russia has moved troops away from the Finnish border?

Explain how turning Ukraine into a lifelong enemy of Russia, who is now attacking deep inside of Russia, who will hate Russia for as long as I will live and want nothing more than to see their demise now, an almost permanent ally unless serious changes happen inside of Russia, right on their damn border, is preferable to Ukraine joining a defensive organisation that wouldn't attack Russia unless Russia attacked them first.

How is Russia, sending hundreds of thousands of troops to their deaths, tens of thousands of military equipment to the scrapyard whilst NATO only sends probably around 5% of their total military power, if even that, mostly consisting of their old stuff, whilst sanctioning Russia to hell and back making them more secure against this apparent "NATO threat"

Moskou is very close to the Ukraine border.

Irrelevant. The difference between Estonia/Latvia vs Ukraine to Moscow is a minor difference/complication for an invading force, if such a "fear" was a legit concern. Modern militaries don't fight their wars anymore by sending thousands of bodies to go march in a straight line, if NATO wanted to do harm to Russia, they could do so very easily even without Ukraine and Putin already knows this.

The West would focus on air superiority, blitzing Russia from the skies and only when they achieve that will they send troops into Russia, it may not even be necessary at all to capture Moscow with soldiers if it's a burning pile of rubble. This is the primary objective of modern militaries today, air superiority is a must and once it is achieved, it is pretty much game over.

A potential NATO membership is seen as an existential risk by the Russians.

Russia is seen as an existential risk by the Ukrainians, by the Polish, by the Finnish, by the Latvians, by the Estonians, etc.

Russia has been invaded twice from the west through the Ukraine plains.

So?

By Napoleon and Hitler.

Really, Napoleon? How far back do we have to go? Hitler? Hard to feel sorry for Russia there, they sided with the Nazis until Germany backstabbed them. You also know that other countries were invaded by Germany too, right? Should UK invade Germany today because they invaded us once? Why is it that Germany, Japan and others have managed to restore relations with countries they once fucked over but Russia hasn't?

Because Russia has barely tried, the Russian leadership is barely any different from the Soviet Union. Same assholes, different name. Chechnya, Georgia, Transnistria, Crimea/Donbas - Whole of Ukraine, Poisonings on UK Soil, etc.

Russia wants a buffer zone they control.

They have Belarus, or more accurately, they have Lukashenko.

It's not important to them how they control it. Either by leadership in Ukraine that is loyal to them or control outright.

Grats on describing a fascist state.

This is the reason Russia through the Soviet Union kept control of Eastern Europe after WW2.

How's that work out for them? Most of them hate Russia now.

Ukraine leadership was a partner for a long time, until the coup happened that disposed this leadership then pro-EU leadership came into place.

Ukraine was moving to pro-Europe views even before the leadership was disposed of, in fact the protests which led to his eventual removal were largely down to him being a Russian puppet and ignoring the public on wanting to be more closely aligned with Europe. Heck, even Zelenskyy has received protests and criticism from Ukrainians for being too soft on Russia in the past.

This caused Russia first to take Crimea and later escalated to the invasion after the door to NATO was opened to Ukraine.

Crimea was the invasion, Crimea is Ukraine. In addition, the door was barely ever open to Ukraine, the last time it was even discussed, Germany opposed it and all it takes is one country of all NATO members to oppose a member for it to fail. Ukraine will not be able to join NATO as long as it's in an active conflict and it was in an active conflict because of Russia, Ukraine never recognised Crimea as Russian.

All Russia needed to do is keep up the fighting in Donbas and refuse to give Ukraine Crimea back and Ukraine wouldn't be joining NATO anytime soon. Even now, countries in Western Europe are reluctant about Ukraine joining, notably Germany and USA, whilst Eastern Europe is unsurprisingly in favour of it. 

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"

Except in the case of Putin, it is. In the case of Hitler, another fella you mentioned, it was. 

Putin does not go about this because he has some dream of Russia taking over Europe just for glory or anything like that.

Yeah, he does, at least the former Soviet Union countries he wants back. Putin wants to make a legacy for himself in his old age, he wants to restore Russia to its former glory, they've pretty openly spoken about these things, they've straight up said that don't consider Ukraine an actual legitimate country and it's still part of Russia. They also want Ukraine for its resources and access to the Black Sea.

It's 100 millions Russians against 400 million Europeans. That would be impossible.

Irrelevant numbers to a psychopath who is overconfident in his abilities and underestimates his enemy, all Putin needs to believe is that the West wouldn't fight back or at least hold back in some fashion because they're too afraid of a nuclear war. It's a very dangerous game to give a madman like Putin more confidence than he already has.

Also, on paper Russia is massively ahead of Ukraine in every military way and yet are struggling so much in Ukraine, despite that, constantly singing praise about how everything is going perfect and Russia is the best army in the world and they're only having competition because they're fighting all of NATO, Lol. Ukraine's defeat to many in Russia would be seen as a Russian victory against NATO.

Obviously the invasion is really bad and some other solution needs to be found.

Solution is simple, Putin fucks off out of Ukraine, including Crimea and minds his own business, that or the West ramps up assistance to Ukraine until they push every last Russian soldier out of the country. 

The only one I can think of is giving Putin some kind of assurances Ukraine will never join NATO for him to back down.

Firstly, Russia has absolutely no right to demand that of an independent country.

Secondly, how will it be enforced? I have the answer for that, it won't be, Russia will restore its military over the years and come back for Round 3 to take more of Ukraine, Russia has already broken promises to Ukraine before, notably the Budapest Memorandum and nobody can trust them at their word anymore, least of all, Ukraine.

1. Russia takes Crimea
2. People in the West: Lets just have peace, let em have it and make them promise to not take anymore!
3. Russia takes Donbas
4. People in the West: Lets just have peace, let em have it and make them promise to not take anymore!
5. Russia takes Kharkhiv
6. People in the West: Lets just have peace, let em have it and make them promise to not take anymore!
7. Russia takes Kyiv
8. People in the West: Lets just have peace, let em have it and make them promise to not take anymore!

Etc. Etc. I can't believe anyone would seriously suggest this as a legit solution anymore, it's utterly naïve.

Russia themselves have contradicted the NATO argument, Russia themselves have given 20,000 different reasons for the invasion. They poison the well with so much bullshit that it doesn't need to make sense, as long as they send a bunch of propaganda nonsense into the feeds and it causes confusion and doubt then it's doing its job.

I'm not arguing if Putin is a good guy or not. I'm saying that Russian leadership is doing what they think is right for Russia. Just like every leadership is doing, causing bad and good, thinking what is right for their own people.

On the subject of "Europe invading Russia". Well probably at the time nobody imagined Napoleon or Hitler would invade Russia, but it happened. These people think long term. What's unimaginable now, might be something that does happen. And that where we get into NATO....

We have seen that the 'West' does like its dictators, as long as they are loyal to their means. Sadam Husein was put in place in the Iran Irac war. Everybody loved Kadafi in Libya for decades. Until off course loyalties changed and they needed to go.

Is this right? Is this wrong? As a European I'm certainly in favor of the "West" wins. But this does not make me blind to the power play that is happening.