Thread by @MelaniePodolyak

Answering some of the ridiculous takes about Ukraine made by some poorly educated people: a megathread.

First of all, the phrase “Post-Soviet state”. Please stop using it, it’s been 30 years. Nobody says “post-Third Reich states”, “post-Pangaea states”, “post-Yugoslavia states”, that’s just dumb.

“Supplying Ukraine with weapons will only escalate the situation and threaten Putin”
If weapons are being given to Ukraine, this doesn’t mean Ukraine will use them to attack Russia. That’s not going to happen. That would be the worst thing ever. we need them for defense purposes.

“Well how would US feel, if Russia started supplying a bordering country with weapons, let’s say, Mexico?”
Well if the US was threatening to INVADE Mexico, that would have been perfectly reasonable.
Historical comparisons do not work well in this situation.

Do not compare supplying Ukraine with arms with the Cuban Missile Crisis, that’s just plain stupid.

“Russia’s demands include a legally-binding halt to NATO’s eastward expansion and withdrawal of NATO troops from countries like Poland and Baltic nations who used to be a part of or aligned with the Soviet Union...

...The US has dismissed those demands as non-starters, but aren’t they reasonable?” (TIME)

Poland has been a member of NATO since 1999, why the hell would anyone agree to these demands is beyond me.
The only reason countries like Poland actually want to be a member of NATO is because of Russia.

NATO is not an offensive alliance, it’s not like it's expanding in order to facilitate a full-on invasion into Russia, so stop using this argument about Putin being threatened by NATO.

“Russia is scared that the US will invade them”
That is literally never going to happen. Period.

“Why should our troops die for Ukraine in Ukraine? It’s their war”

No one is sending any troops to Ukraine. Nobody’s even asking for that, to be fair.

Maybe they’ll send some to Poland or Estonia. But nobody’s gonna die (except for a WHOLE BUNCH of Ukrainians, but it’s not like anyone cares, right?)
Also, there’s that Budapest agreement, but everyone has basically used it as toilet paper as of now.

Now, IMPORTANT INFORMATION

“When the Soviet Union broke up, we promised Russia that we were not going to expand NATO. We didn’t keep our promise, and now our expansion is being treated as an act of aggression by Russia.”

THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED.

This was discussed before the collapse of the USSR and was never formalized in a treaty. Nothing was ever committed, US State Secretary Baker literally made some verbal promises, and the State Department had no plans to expand anyway.

But then the USSR collapsed and Russia has changed its policy and screwed it up.

In an interview, Gorbachev was asked why he didn’t insist that the promises made to him — particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East — be legally encoded?

Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed...

...on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”

Up until the Russian military occupation of Crimea in March, there was virtually no stationing of any NATO combat forces on the territory of new members.

Source:
brookings.edu/blog/up-front/…

Also, from the National Security Archive:

“Opinions differed, but the suggestion from the Defence Department as of October 25, 1990 was to leave “the door ajar” for East European membership in NATO. (See Document 27)...

The view of the State Department was that NATO expansion was not on the agenda, because it was not in the interest of the U.S. to organize “an anti-Soviet coalition”...

that extended to the Soviet borders, not least because it might reverse the positive trends in the Soviet Union. (See Document 26)”

nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/…

“Russia considers Ukraine to be neutral of aligned with them, so it’s understandable that they would treat NATO expansion as an act of aggression and a provocation”

Again: Ukraine is a sovereign and independent nation free to take any political course we choose.

We put NATO in our Constitution. It's our right to choose partners and alliances.

BUT ALSO, after the collapse of the USSR NATO has expanded onto East Germany, for instance. And the USSR agreed to that.

There were provisions put in place about NATO moving into East Germany while Russia was still pulling its troops out of it, but there was a formal acknowledgment of NATO expanding eastward, which in it of itself was the expansion Russia “fears” so deeply.

And then in 1999 there was Poland, and then Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, Albania and Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. So, eastward.

And EVEN if there was an IRON-CLAD AGREEMENT on the NATO non-expansion eastward, there would still be absolutely no justification for Russian war against Ukraine. I can't believe I have to explain this.

“The US also leads an expansionist policy, so they can’t tell Russia it’s doing something bad.”
Stupid comparison, not relevant, just because someone else does something, it doesn’t make it okay for everyone else to do it.

“Crimea is ethnically Russian, so it’s not weird that he occupied it, Crimeans wanted to join. Also, he needed Crimea strategically in order not to feel endangered, so we shouldn’t be surprised”

We’ve been through this is many times it’s ridiculous.

I’m not gonna even expand on that. That’s Russian propaganda at its finest. Nothing can justify an invasion of a sovereign state, so just shut up and log off the Internet.

That's all for now, but dear god I fear I'll have to do more of this.

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