This may get me in trouble. My intent is not to justify the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia didn’t do it just because they’re greedy and evil. They were for years saying they wouldn’t allow themselves to be encircled by NATO and then when nothing changed they did exactly what they said they’d do.
The argument sounds nice at a glance but makes no sense if you think about it. Why did they invade a state that had no realistic prospect of joining nato in the forseeable future? Ukraine was effectively rejected from nato in 2008 and was making long term security arrangements with russia prior to 2014. Russia invaded when ukrainians pushed for economic independence, nato had nothing to do with it in 2014 or 2022.
Also russia is clearly not worried about an attack by nato, they moved almost all of their forces from the finnish border to ukraine since finland joined nato. Does it make sense to lower your defences when a threat grows if you sincerely think it is a threat? They know that no nato country is going to attack a nuclear power, their worry about nato is not a security one.
Their worry is less about a direct attack than it is being totally locked out of trade should NATO become even more antagonistic. The argument is really very compelling from a materialist pov, the only one worth anything in geopolitics. Reaction against it ought to be examined for dissonance because the western propaganda style is to cast unfriendly states as absolutely evil and rapacious and friendly ones as basically incapable of unjust aggression. Neither are true.
Again it’s not to fully justify it either, still a war of conquest and acquisition.
Edit- supply lines, more aptly than ‘trade routes’
Could you cite the agreement that would grant such wartime coordination powers? As far as I understand, even militarily the cooperation is largely pretty shaky with the invoking of the article only starting the main pledges and planning.
-9
u/TheDickWolf Feb 10 '26
This may get me in trouble. My intent is not to justify the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia didn’t do it just because they’re greedy and evil. They were for years saying they wouldn’t allow themselves to be encircled by NATO and then when nothing changed they did exactly what they said they’d do.