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Notes -
I don’t think this narrative is accurate at all.
Putin had connections to the oligarchy during his rise to power. Anyone who would’ve attempted to climb that mountain would’ve had to have dealings of one kind or another with them at some point. There’s no avoiding that. But once he got in, he broke the back of the oligarchy quite thoroughly. Whether you want to say he just replaced it with his own well connected inner circle, is another matter, but that isn’t the point.
Putin never had a desire to annihilate Ukraine and go to war with it. There’s nothing that actually substantiates that, beyond people’s mere speculation. There’s nothing nobody can point to directly that’s the smoking gun which establishes that intent. Victims of the MSM and the American propaganda system loved to go around initially and proclaim, “Putin is losing the war! Their military is overreaching! They’ve overspent themselves!,” but it never dawned on them for even a moment that Putin was never trying to go full Mike Tyson on Ukraine.
The fog of propaganda is ‘dense’. On both sides. I think this comment doesn’t crack through the effort of the west’s attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of its citizens.
It's clearly absurd to think that the current situation is one that Putin wanted. Whatever he was trying to achieve, it wasn't this.
I don't think his desire was to annihilate Ukraine, to be clear. I don't even think his initial goal was to annex Ukraine. I think his desire was to kill Zelensky and install Yanukovych as a friendly leader. Obviously things didn't work out the way he wanted and we're now on plan D or something.
True, and I agree with that. But that argument has a very small payload, and I don’t accept that framing of the issue. I think if you look at it more through a geopolitical and International Relations (IR) lens, ask yourself what Putin should’ve done if you were in his situation. I can’t think of a good decision to make either, but his hands were tied.
Did you know that Yanukovych was the democratically elected President of Ukraine before the western backed Maidan coup happened?
I don't believe for a second that this was an inevitable war forced on a reluctant Putin. He had choices at every point - the most important of course being the choice to invade Ukraine, which he could have simply not done. Now, he may have decided that war was the best path forward for his interests - and maybe that was even a rational decision based on the information he had at the time. He certainly wouldn't have been alone in thinking that Ukraine would not be able to put up much of a fight. But I highly suspect that if he had known the path that the future would take, he would have chosen differently.
His hands were not tied. He made a decision - and it was the wrong decision.
Yes. I'm also extremely confident he no longer has popular support in Ukraine.
How do you choose to interpret the Minsk Accords? If the west is unwilling to respect your security concerns. The problem I see in your logic is that it fails to take the Russia side of the equation seriously. This is why I ask you the same question the pro-western side can’t answer either. Given the events leading up to the crisis, if you were Putin, what would you have done?
Interesting that you seem to suggest coups can be justified in light of this logic. It wouldn’t surprise me why the west would believe it. That’s the inherent nature of political hypocrisy and duplicity. But it’s also good to know that disputing democratic elections is now in vogue if the vote goes the wrong way. The US proved that when it disputed the results of the people in Donetsk and Luhansk.
If Russia would invade and conquer Spain they would complain about security concerns posed by Portugal.
Russia's problem is that they want to be treated as superpower. They are not. That is why West refused to treat their demands seriously (and they demanded for example demilitarization of Poland and similar nonstarters).
Try to unfuck Russia. Starting from stealing less.
Definitely avoid speedrunning population collapse in Ukraine and Russia by increasing scope of ongoing war.
Yes, for example I am 100% fine with couping genocidal leaders, also when they were elected as long as there is plausible less murderous alternative. (note: not claiming that this specific one was genocidal, just giving a clear example where it would be blatantly correct if alternatives were exhausted)
I am not treating democracy procedures as the highest virtue. Note that in this specific cases current ruler had no support from population. Whether Maidan was a coup or not is an interesting question BTW.
Ukraine isn't Spain and wanting your security concerns to be respected w/re to a country which is on your border and <300mi from your capital isn't demanding someone pretend you're a superpower, but pretend you're a country with any sovereignty whatsoever, something which is clearly a bridge too far for the US and its satrapies.
there is no serious argument that Russia, or any country, doesn't have legitimate security concerns in what happens in the country directly on its border and arguing a country claiming such is akin to demanding the world treat them as a superpower is nonsense
are you under the impression that Russia is not far more unfucked now under Putin than before he came to power?
Russia swallowing up over 10,000,000 ethnic russians seems to be a good strategy to stave off population collapse
What pro-russian or at least neutral, non-Western sources of information do you use to form your opinion about this topic?
That exact same argument would apply to Ukraine. Are they justified in treating every dead Russian as a slight reduction to “security concerns?” Maybe they should have invaded first.
Russia isn’t playing at being a superpower because they have security interests. Everyone has those. They’re playing it because they’re acting on them in a way that normal powers either can’t or won’t.
sure, now what? would Ukraine be playing at superpower? no
no, russia isn't playing at being a superpower because they're engaged in a conflict on their border <300mi from their capital in a region full of ethnic Russians
normal powers engaging in wars similar to the Russian/Ukraine war is not only one of "normal powers," but is seen all throughout history; it only seems reasonable to try to label this as something "normal powers" don't do because you've only known a world with an ascendant global hegemon, but this isn't the normal state of world conflict, and trying to label any country which doesn't immediately fall into line w/re a conflict on its border within a few hundred miles to its capital full of people who are co-ethnics with that country as one "pretending to be a superpower" is ridiculous
or is Azerbaijan pretending to be a Superpower because it invades Armenia and steals their land? also no
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