The Russians say that it is West violated and not fulfilled every previous agreements. And they have pretty good reasons to think so.
Actually, the war is winnable. Russia can occupy the whole Ukraine (and if necessary - significant part of Europe) as she did many times before.
It took 20 million soldiers and 83K tanks to stop '3rd EU' expansion previous time. The current Russian losses are not even close to those numbers.
Actually, there are plenty of people who believe that the most important goal of American presence in Europe is to prevent ressurection of European Nazism (as well as the most important goal in Middle East is elimination of Jihadistes and terrorists). And for either goals we can cooperate (or, at least, coordinate our actions) with the Russians. And yes, really democratical solution of the Ukrainian conflict (and,wider, of the European security crisis) is granting equal rights (first of all linguistic rights) for the Russians, Tatars, Hungarians and Jews in Ukraine and in the liberalisation of the EU market.
Yes. From their point of view - the stake is the very existence of the Russian people (or at least twenty million Russians in Ukraine).
The Russian high command (as well as ordinary soldiers) prefer to kill enemies of the Russian people i.e. western-backed Ukrainian militants and western mercenaries. And they are eager to kill Western soldiers as well.
You see, in the case of NATO occupation of the lands West from Dniepr - the Russians will, at least, use their proxies against NATO forces and, it will be full scale guerilla war, in which ordinary American soldiers can't see the difference between a Russian and an Ukrainian at all, and often will try to shoot them all just to survive. And the things can go really ugly with all those western ATGMs and Manpads (say nothing about tanks and jets) in the hands of irregulars with unclear loyalty. It will be much worse than Vietnam by itself, but what is much worse, it can easily and even almost inevitablely escalate to the level of a regional nuclear war.
As usual you post nothing but bullshit. In 1990, Russia recognized Ukraine as an independent sovereign nation which included Crimea, and few years later signed a long term lease with Ukraine to keep its naval base in Crimea. In 1994, Russia signed a treaty that recognized these same Ukrainian borders and pledged to never violate them unless Russia was directly attacked. But this was before Putin came to power and now that Putin has demonstrated his contempt for international law and international treaties, only an idiot would suggest this war can be ended with a treaty signed by Putin's government.
Clearly, you're drinking way too much vodka.
Actually, back in 1990, NATO promised do not expand eastward.
en.news-front.info
There you go again, drooling out more Putin bullshit. The article you posted stated that there was an agreement among some NATO members not to accepted applications for membership from eastern European nations recently freed from a 45 year brutal Russian occupation, but it says nothing about an agreement with Russia regarding the issue. Gorbachev has been clear that there never was an agreement between the USSR and NATO or the US.Actually, back in 1990, NATO promised do not expand eastward.
Der Spiegel: Official document confirms that NATO promised not to expand eastwards
Vladimir Putin had earlier claimed that Moscow had been “hoodwinked and brazenly deceived” by Western countries by promising that NATO would not expand “not one inch eastwards”. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, however, vehemently claimed that no one had made such promises to the USSR It...
NATO did bombing campaign against Serbia, committed aggression against Iraq, invaded Syria, provoked Georgian aggression against South Ossetia (including attack against Russian peacekeepers and civilians), backed illegal coup in Ukraine, violated treaty between Maidan and Yanukovich, discriminated Russian in Ukrainian, violated Ukrainian Constitution by sending regular forces against Ukrainian civilians, didn't fulfilled Minsk agreements, violated Russia-NATO treaty and so on...
And no, we can see at the example of Georgia and Syria, that Russia can sign peace treaties and de-escalate situation.
Right now Russian Army don't fight a war at all. It's just a 'special operation' something like Chechnya or Syria. And yes, if the things will be getting serious, they easily can escalate to the levels of local, regional or even large-scale war.
Agreement or not, but the situation was pretty clear - if the West endanger Russia, Russia can fight back. The expansion of NATO (especially in the way of an anti-Russian crusade) endanger, first of all, Western countries.
Again, you express Putin's utter contempt for international laws and treaties. The only justification for an attack on another nation is an actual or imminent attack on Russia by that nation, and no such act occurred. NATO did not aggressively expand; it decided to allow eastern European nations that had suffered under a brutal Russian occupation to apply and join NATO to protect themselves from the Russia they had learned to hate and feat. There never was a direct security threat to Russia.
and the US isn't. The US has been the most warring country in the history of the world.
www.counterpunch.org
Of course no. There are plenty of possible reasons for military invasion in other countries, de facto accepted by the West:
Sure it was, and it still is. You see, the Russians learned to fight European invaders pretty well and they are trying to stop them now. And yes, Europeans already discriminate and kill ethnic Russians.
Such arguments can be made but the fact remains that under international law only an actual or imminent attack is justification for an attack on another nation. Yet again you express your contempt for international law and international treaties.
Everything that I said is true.
Perhaps Putin's wishful thinking that NATO will not stand up to him and resist his aggression.
Russia has already failed badly in their attempt to occupy all of Ukraine.
The expansion of NATO does not endanger anyone in either Russia or the West. All the expansion does is protect more people from Russian aggression.
What collective defense treaty has Kosovo signed?
As I said, there are reasons for invasion de facto acceptable by the Western countries. Second, de jure Ukraine attacked DPR and LPR (recognized by Russia as independent states) and it was equal to the direct attack against Russian Federation itself.
I have read that the West of Ukraine now looks down on the East in general thinking of them derogatively as 'slavs' but the Tartars are something else. They are the people who are the most Indigenous to Crimea. They were forced out after WW2 then allowed to come back after the break of the Soviet Union and since the take over by Russia in 2014 they are being forced out again. Most of them are fighting on the side of Ukraine in this war.
www.voanews.com
A long-term ban on the study of the Crimean Tatar language following the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by the Soviet government has led to the fact that at the moment UNESCO ranked the Crimean Tatar language among the languages under serious threat of extinction (severely endangered).[/quote]
Crimean Tatar language - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
