Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
Are people actually arguing that NATO membership is the reason for Russian attacks on neighboring nations?
Putin literally said he wants to restore the old Russian Empire. What the fuck was thay suppose to mean, then? A joke?
Jfc the number of people who don't believe the terrible things Dictators say they are going to do is too damn high.
Tankies need to toe the party line.
This is a weird comma, usage.
It's a goose, man. Can't you just be proud of him for spelling and stuff?
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it might make grammatical, errors.
The Goose is usually yelling motherfucker in this meme. The operation apparently had complications.
While Russia is the belligerent actor and it is their fault, pre-2014 Ukraine was hardly "neutral", having mulled both NATO and EU ascension discussions. The latter being the actual provocation rather than the former. (This isn't at all to say any of this is Ukraine's "fault", only to point out they were not "neutral")
In early 2013 the Ukrainian parliament agreed to make legal steps towards EU ascension (source 2014 pro Russia unrest in Ukraine)
Which is what Lord Robertson, the former Secretary General of Nato, has stated was the start of the crisis:
"One theory, propounded by realists such as the academic John Mearsheimer, is that Nato expansion in eastern Europe was the reason that Putin invaded Ukraine. Robertson dismissed the idea. “I met Putin nine times during my time at Nato. He never mentioned Nato enlargement once.” What Robertson said next was interesting: “He’s not bothered about Nato, or Nato enlargement. He’s bothered by the European Union. The whole Ukraine crisis started with the offer of an EU accession agreement to Ukraine in 2014.”
Putin fears countries on Russia’s border being “fundamentally and permanently” changed by EU accession. “Every aspect [of society is affected] – they woke up very late to it… I don’t think they ever fully understood the EU,” Robertson said, adding the caveat that the EU was not at fault because accession was what Ukraine, as a sovereign nation, wanted." [end quote]
Source: https://www.newstatesman.com/encounter/2024/05/george-robertson-nato-why-russia-fears-european-union
Ukraine is a sovereign nation. It is allowed to make treaties with other sovereign nations.
Or do you believe the US should invade Brazil because it is part of BRICS?
I feel you've not read my first paragraph (or last quoted sentence) closely enough..
I guess its worth mentioning that Ukraine was never "neutral" to begin with. Since the fall of the union Ukraine had been in the Russian sphere of influence and they were neutral only to the extent where it wouldn't undermine Russian control over Ukraine. That's why the EU accession agreement started this, because it undermined Russian power and Russia was not okay with losing that power. Russia never wanted neutral buffer states, Russia wanted countries that they could control.
Literally leasing a very important port city (Sevastopol) to the Russian navy counts for nothing?
That's so much more cooperation than talking with NATO or "aiming to get closer ties with the EU". Not to say that Russia had tons of trade deals with the EU, so does Morocco and everyone who wants something in that region.
In early 2013 the Ukrainian parliament agreed to make legal steps towards EU ascension
EU, unlike NATO, is not a military alliance.
You're not thinking forth dimensionally, Marty!
Putin feared the EU because it was expanding far faster than NATO. EU expansion offered valuable trade links to former soviet countries and in turn required they implement anti-corruption legislation, and in the words of NATO secretary general Robertson above "changed every aspect of society". That's what Putin was afraid of.
Look at what happened to Georgia.
Old soviet regime runs economy into the ground. In 2003 pro-democracy NGOs help organise a peaceful student protests that culminates in the Rose Revolution. Autocratic government out, democratic government elected for first time, immediately start plans to align with EU to recover the economy.
2006 signs joint statement with EU on economic cooperation. Also opens pipeline cutting out Iran and Russia and delivering Azerbaijan oil directly to EU friendly Turkey.
So in 2008 Russia invades Georgia's Tskhinvali and Abkhazia regions in an attempt to destabilise the country. Fortunately this fails.
2013 Georgia signs deeper level of EU cooperation. Ukraine parliament makes legal guarantees it'll start to align with EU.
Putin was out of time, his Caucasus route to the middle East was closing forever, economic influence via the black sea was closing off, so he grabbed Crimea. It was the EU not NATO that surrounded him.
And that's what the NATO secretary general said.
It was the EU not NATO that surrounded him.
Yeah like with rapists, I don't really care for their reasoning. NATO is a military alliance, EU isn't, so even if we assume that worrying about nearby military alliances is a "justified" reason to, idk, invade your neighbouring country, it still isn't a justification, as EU is not a military alliance.
In terms of Moscow's loss of control, the EU was proving far more effective than NATO. Like the NATO secretary general said, the EU spread represented the start of the crisis, but the invasion was Russia's fault. Because they're belligerent assholes..
The whole Ukraine crisis started with the offer of an EU accession agreement to Ukraine in 2014
I think the crisis technically started with a military invasion. If not that, then we could go back and forth on this to the founding of NATO and before.
That's a very interesting take I haven't heard of before. My understanding was that a primary reason Russia invaded Crimea was due to the oil reserves there that Russia wanted. I guess it extends beyond that.
Russia doesn't need the Crimean oil reserves, it's more than they wanted Ukraine to not have it. Even then, energy security wasn't as much a motivator as was securing access to Sevastopol, a critical warm water port and the only place capable of housing the black sea fleet. Although control of that port, in turn, is largely to do with projecting energy control over a wider region.
Russia was leasing Sevastopol from Ukraine (til 2042). It had become increasingly important to Russia's other objectives being a staging location for supporting the incursion into Georgia, and also Russia's involvement in Syria. Both of which are key to Russia's broader goal of region control and energy security (not Ukraine per se).
It may be that Russia was far more sensitive to EU membership than NATO because EU membership travelled much faster and was already outflanking them (see map at bottom)
In the early 2000's, increasing ineffectiveness of the old Soviet style leadership in Georgia was bankrupting the country and making corruption rife. This was increasingly apparent to international businesses there and a student population that enjoyed (somewhat miraculously) the relatively free press in the form of TV stations critical of the regime and its corruption.
Subsequently, foreign NGO presence helped organise and contribute to the peaceful 2003 Rose Revolution which saw the older soviet influence brushed away in favour of new democratic parties. (Put your favourite conspiracy / neocon / deepstate analysis hat on, a major financier of the NGOs was George Soros)
The new leadership sought to put Georgia on better economic footing and in 2006 together with the EU issued a statement on the 5 year Georgia-European Union Action Plan within the European Neighbourhood Policy which was a major snub to Russia.
Russia's desire to maintain a foothold within Georgia subsequently provoked the 2008 Russia Georgian War over Georgia's northern 'South Ossetia' region. Not only because Georgia is the gateway to projecting power into the Middle East, but more immediately because in 2006 Georgia opened the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline which cut Iran and Russia out of the picture and connected Azerbaijan oil fields up directly with EU friendly Turkey.
Russia failed to make anyway headway with their support of South Ossetia. Then in 2013, Georgia and the EU took the next step in closer alignment, an Association Agreement. With Russia's efforts to expand influence into the Caucasus region curtailed and weakening in power to project strength over energy producing regions, Putin saw the need to permanently secure Sevastopol as becoming critical.
The Ukrainian parliament had begun legal alignment with the EU the same year.
Hence in 2014, Russia took Crimea.
(If you look at the map of EU plus Georgia, you can see how close EU alignment could be seen to have 'provoked' Russia to act. Though very much only in the sense that they are anti democratic and imperialist)
Vlad yearns for the days of the Russian Empire. Apparently he doesn't know how things ultimately panned out for the tsar.
And by "neutral buffer state" they mean a Russian territory, that can't elect its own leaders, has no control over its resources and lives under a permanent Russian occupation.
I still remember a short period of time in the first half of 2022 where even the most tankiest of people clearly felt unease from the war Russia started. The sheer evil of it broke through the propaganda they had integested, and for like 3 months they weren't sure if they should support it or not.
But eventually they got around to supporting it somehow. The mind can explain black to be white or perhaps some of them got actual instructions how to communicate. 1968 Czechoslovakia all over again.
The pro-Russian propoganda on social media clawed them right back. The climate went from "How can we help stop the atrocities in Ukraine?" to "Why are we sending so much to Ukraine when our own country/veterans need help at home?" and other such bullshit they've never truly cared about or contributed toward.
Oh this isn't on lemmy.ml or lemmygrad.ml? I'm so surprised! /MEGA-S
This meme seems to undercut its own argument. No one can honestly argue that post-Euromaidan Ukraine was intent on remaining a buffer between Russia and NATO. In 2014 Ukraine made it clear that it was resolved to go to the Western camp and was sick of Russian influence. So what exactly is the argument here?
I'm not going to entertain the thought of what "neutrality" would mean, because the entire "neutral buffer" argument is just Russian propaganda. Ukraine wasn't neutral before 2014, it was squarely within the Russian sphere of influence since the collapse of the union. Let's reverse the situation. Let's say Russia wins, dismantles the current Ukrainian government and sets up the "legitimate" Ukrainian government, would Ukraine become a "neutral buffer"? No. It would become a vassal state of Russia because Russia can't give Ukraine the autonomy to make their own decisions, otherwise they might decide to turn westward again.
Maybe that's the hypocrisy the meme is pointing to, that the neutrality argument in its entirety is bullshit because Ukraine was never neutral to begin with.
Why do the Russians think they need a buffer between themselves and NATO anyway? Are they planning on doing things that would make them seem like a threat to NATO, and don't believe NATO have supersonic planes or something?
