The true causes of the current war between Russia and Ukraine

Anyone can identify themselves as whom- or whatever they choose. You seem to be missing the point, perhaps merely playing the Devil's Advocate.

Putin's power grab for Ukraine is clearly an old-fashioned war of aggression; Moscow's the aggressor and Kh'iv's the victim.

Furthermore, as with Vietnam, I'm not so certain that war was even declared against Ukraine, at least officially. This is an obvious violation of the Geneva Convention and Putin should be hauled into the International Court of Justice in the Hague, as with any war criminal.

Stranger still... Ukraine has not declared itself to be in a war either.

Quite, Bobko.

Can you give us an update on whether Russia controls the entire territory it claims belongs to the Russian Federation or just part of it?

@Novichok

Just part. Control over Kherson Oblast is not complete, Zaporozhye Oblast not complete, Donetsk Oblast not complete - only Luhansk Oblast is close to full control.

I've already become confused about whether or not Kharkov Oblast is still something that's on the agenda - there we control the smallest slice.

Vladimir Putin said that "The actions of Russia have only one aim - ending the war that the West started there". He also added that "Russia aims to resolve the conflict with peaceful means".

wydarzenia.interia.pl/raport-ukraina-rosja/news-putin-znalazl-odpowiedzialnych-za-wojne-celem-rosji-jest-jej,nId,6980727

It should be noticed that the Russian president used the word "war" not "SMO". Also, doesn't what Putin said sound as if he gunuinely wants to end the war? Perhaps NATO should talk to Zelensky about some version of Kosovo solution that was already tested by the West and legal precedent set?

@GefreiterKania

I think it's a clever thing to say, while the West is fumbling with how to react to a failed counter-offensive.

This past week has had a whole cannonade of negative leaks and interviews in the press, spanning the spectrum from Western politicians to Western generals, all shedding light on their very negative appraisal of the situation. An analyst at RAND said the following to the Financial Times:

I don't think that you'll hear an argument from anyone that this is going well right now or that this is heading to a place that people would view as good, but there is not much by way of plan B,"

The worst incident of the past two weeks, was probably when Stoltenberg's deputy said that it might be possible to offer Ukraine EU/NATO accession in exchange for territorial concessions to Russia. This caused a furore in Ukraine, and had to be walked back by Stoltenberg - who apologized and reiterated the party line that "Ukraine, and only Ukraine can decide how this war should end."

In that same FT article, titled "US grows doubtful Ukraine's counter-offensive can quickly succeed", they write that behind the scenes, American and European politicians are increasingly of a mind that it cannot be left solely up to Ukraine to set the conditions for victory. Their maximalist demands, set the stage for a potentially endless war, which will drain the West just as it gears up for a contest with China.

However, it would not be so simple to wash Ukraine down the toilet drain, while big, evil Putin continues to rain missiles on innocents, and rape Ukrainian babies. On the other hand, it may be a bit easier, if Putin is on the back foot and asking for peace. That, in fact, makes the Ukrainians look unreasonable.

Feeding the discord between Ukraine and her allies, is I think the main purpose of such olive branches. What he's actually thinking, you can only know if you get inside Putin's head.

I gather the orcs arę scuppering old ferries around their illegal bridge to Crimea. They know it'll be destroyed, hopefully when they're fleeing across it.

It is rather easy to cause a furore in Ukraine these days. I think they have as much chance of keeping lands with Russian majority as Serbia had of keeping lands with Albanian majority. Why would they even want to keep them? If a majority of people doesn't want to be in the same country with you, to the point of starting an armed rebellion, why not grant them their freedom and independence?


This sentence would be true if Ukraine and only Ukraine could fight this war without any outside support. In their current situation they would be well advised to take their allies' opinion into account.

Ukraine's problem, in my opinion, is the difference between what they are and what they would like to be. Of course, you can want to be a nationalistic, mono-ethnic, mono-lingual, chauvinistic state - knock yourselves out - but if your current borders stretch waaaaay beyond what might be considered your core ethnic lands, then it is bound to end up badly. Albo rybka albo pipka, jak powiedział Hamlet. ;)

They do seem a bit strung out, don't they?

Can't blame them, really. Their resources have been severely depleted after building 40 monuments of Stepan Bandera...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commemoration_of_Stepan_Bandera

... perhaps they should have said enough at 15 (maybe 20)?

And we tried to warn them...



... "territories which now constitute Ukraine" should have sounded like a sobering warning, right? Oh, well...

They really have, totally and utterly f*cked themselves with their enlightened foreign policy since 1991.

Now they're in a world of hurt.

At least the Ukrainians still have the prospect of a better life if they manage to fend off Russia as part of the Western world.

What have Russians to look forward to? Living under the corrupt regime of Putin and his eventual successors, with a rapidly declining standard of living and no hope of improvement (to the contrary, really).

At which point, does the Western world really stop being Western? With Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, now part of "The West" - the idea is already being stretched to extremes. With Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia thrown into the mix - it'll be a real chimera.

If 1,000 years and Catholicism, did not make Poland genuinely West, I suppose it would take the Ukrainians at least 500 years to get there (they are a TurboNation, after all).

Hardly. The Western world is not built on geography but principles like democracy, rule of law and human rights. Russia had the chance of becoming part of the West as well in the 90s, but its' elites rejected it to the great detriment of its' people.

Right, because these three things flourish in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. It's probably why I have to read an article a week, from publications like Politico.eu, or the BBC about institutional backsliding in Poland. It's why Romania and Bulgaria are now contending with the Balkans, for title of criminal hub of Europe. The greatest respect for human rights, must be why gypsies are treated as subhuman.

Such West, much respect!

You are aware there is a liberal west and a conservative west right..? Read the Spectator instead.

Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki, speaking at Heidelberg University last Monday, highlighted that Europe could only be strong if it were a continent of nation-states - not a super-state government ruled by elites. He stressed that ignoring the cultural differences between countries would result in an overall weakening of Europe at a time when Ukrainians were fighting for the very freedoms which all Europeans hold dear. He indicated that the nation-state is best-placed to protect these freedoms, highlighting that all other - grander - systems were 'illusory' and 'utopian'.

Morawiecki's comments appear to equate the cultural prospect of a European superstate to the superstates which are Russia and China.

spectator.co.uk/article/polands-burgeoning-alliance-with-britain-is-bad-for-putin/

Those countries embraced those concepts and flourished thanks to them. That some of them are backsliding is unfortunate and may prove costly to them, but the reason why they are today much better off is because they once embraced them.

Just think about the potential Russia might have had if it followed Poland's example. No corrupt elite that squanders its' wealth, no imperialistic vanity projects and imperialistic wars, just a government which ia trying to improve the life of its ' citizens. Russiana living outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg might be living today in villages with functioning roads, a somewhat functioning health-care systems and even indoor-plumbing. They would not have to worry about being sent to fight and die in Ukraine.


And here you see one of the greatest strength of Western civilization. Not only has formulated high ideals, it also tries to follow them and will be judged on the success of doing so. Which is why the conditions are constantly if slowly improving, while we see stagnant or even recessive behaviour in other countries. The newest example is Russia invading Ukraine and its' people professing views about Ukraine that were common several decades ago.

I'm sure you will laugh, but the Russian government is probably quite a bit more competent than Poland's in most regards that concern civilian life.

The things that trickle down to your echo chamber, are inevitably negative facts about life in Russia.

Since I don't know life in Poland, I will compare life in Russia to the United States:

1) We have a system of electronic government, which is light years ahead of anything in NY or CA, or at the Federal level. This genuinely excludes most opportunities for corruption, which flourished in the 90s and early 2000s. Getting any document, takes minutes now. Kazakhstan recently shut down their own eGov initiative, on which they spent several billion dollars, and has contracted instead with the developers of the Russian software.

2) Tax administration is as simple as ABC, and the rates are extremely low compared to the West. You don't need a PhD in physics to pay your taxes without help.

3) The process of construction permitting has been streamlined, to where it is certainly much more simple and transparent than it is in the United States.

4) Working with immigration authorities, for migrants, is 10,000X simpler and less painful than it is dealing with the USCIS.

5) Our regulators move very quickly to make innovations possible in the FinTech sphere, which is why we laugh at Americans and their silly checks, ach, and wire transfers.

6) In anything not concerning political opposition, or commercial disputes worth billions of dollars, the courts move very quickly and the judges are increasingly well qualified within their respective spheres.

I can continue...

The life of an average Russian does not revolve around the war in Ukraine, whatever some oligarch stole in the 1990s, or who got jailed for posting against Putin on social media. These things may be unjust, but they do not reflect on the quality of actual day-to-day government.

By that measure Russia has overtaken Ukraine long ago, and even super-progressive Georgia. The World Bank's "Ease of Doing Business Index" reflects this (Russia has climbed dozens of positions). Before the war, Russia was also rated as one of the best places in the world to invest.

I can see that you love your russia but somehow you don't want to go back to it. For me personally russia (which I don't know at all) currently occupies a common place in the bag with North Korea, Iran and China, with the difference that the latter is an economic power that russia isn't.

They never do, and most of those things he listed have a darker aspect.


Is very short indeed compared to people in the decadent west. 71 years and falling fast.

What a paradise.

So why don't you find out? What are you doing on a Polish forum if you're not interested in Poland? You do realise that Poland is in the EU and is nothing like the USA so what's the point of your comparison?

For me personally, you are a classless and rude lowlife. You are responding to a Russian - one of the nicest guys here - and lowercase the name of his country but uppercase North Korea!

Are you capable of shame?


1. None of your business.
2. This is an American forum with Poland as just one of the subjects and way behind Random.

These are my private sanctions against russia. If I could introduce other sanctions, I would, but nothing else comes to mind.

...by trying to insult a Russian poster???

Are you out of your fu*cking mind? That was not a rhetorical question.

Novi, you're skating on thin ice, getting personal is not fine.

No justification for Russia's war against Ukraine.

As you must know, from 1999 to 2013 Putin had no territorial claims against Ukraine according to the agreements signed between Ukraine and Russia including on Russian military bases in Crimea. According to the Budapest Memorandum on Ukraine's nuclear disarmament in 1994, Russia pledged to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to abstain from economic pressure on Ukraine. So from 1999 to 2013 Putin recognized Crimea and Donbas as Ukraine's territory, like his predecessor Boris Yeltsin did in 1991-1999.

Suddenly in 2014 Putin refused to settle his disagreements over the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement with the new pro-EU Ukrainian authorities peacefully through negotiations, and launched a war of aggression against Ukraine (the treacherous encirclement and invasion of Ukrainian military bases in Crimea and occupation of Crimea by Russian troops, and later of Donbas and other regions of Ukraine). The Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU was not directed against Russia in any respect. In view of the above mentioned points, there was no valid justification for Russia's war against Ukraine.

The US and the UK must be the main mediators in this war, as they and Russia provided guarantees of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the Budapest Memorandum on Ukraine's nuclear disarmament in 1994. As it has been evident for over 9 years now, those guarantees to Ukraine by Russia, the USA and the UK were false, and Ukraine has been betrayed by these three powers since 2014 in this respect.

The case of Ukraine shows that international agreements can't be enforced and International Law can't be upheld because Russia can't be forced to observe them, and has weapons of mass destruction that Russia may resort to.

@Tacitus,
Would you also not agree that, for example, Germany when still "The German Empire" has had her diplomatic run-ins with Russia since even before Frederick the Great, at around the time of Peter The Great?

As the world's largest single land mass, its greatest country, in terms of sheer size at any rate, Russia remains almost insatiable in her appetite for territory.

Perhaps they sensed this affinity with their German neighbors and hence the historical competitive rivalry between the two nations.

@Lyzko


They would have shared that affinity with pretty much all their neighbours (sans Poland) since wars of conquest were the norm back then.

Yes. We keep seeing the same text spread all over the internet by Putlerbots.
Only a fool would be taken in by it.