The claim "NATO provoked a war and wanted Russia to invade" is not a tankie claim, it has been admitted many times in NATO sources.
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A 1997 letter from fifty foreign policy experts warned Clinton against cornering Russia and expanding NATO: https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/arms-control-today/opposition-nato-expansion
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A 2019 RAND report 'Overextending and Unbalancing Russia' suggests sending arms to Ukraine and provoking a war: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
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In 2022, the US admitted that its strategic goals do not include peace, and that it's using Ukraine as a pawn to create "a weakened and isolated Russia": https://thehill.com/news/3263473-sullivan-us-wants-to-see-an-independent-ukraine-and-a-weakened-and-isolated-russia/
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Then US Ambassador (later CIA Director) William Burn cautioned that NATO expansionism would trigger a Civil War exactly because it did not have support in the public (and that Russia would reluctantly invade): https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
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55% of Ukrainians believe NATO has responsibility for the Russian invasion: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/WSJ_NORC_Ukraine_Poll_June_2022.pdf
It should also be noted that NATO threatening Russia isn't bad just because it creates instability and the potential for war. It's bad because the purpose of their conflict with Russia is to pillage the country, which will lead to the emisseration of both Russian and European workers (and American workers, but maybe to a lesser extent).
This isn't speculation, doomerism, or edginess. The NATO alliance already did this in the 90s when they finally succeeded in destroying the USSR. They pillaged the place so severely that life expectancy collapsed. They're still doing it in Ukraine. They hate Putin because he reigned in the domestic capitalist collaborators. Any of his reactionary tendencies they would ignore or celebrate if he was an ally, and since whoever they would prefer to be the president of Russia (like Navalny, I spit) has to be a capitalist, they're also going to have to be at least as reactionary as Putin.
Russia cannot allow ongoing NATO encirclement. The consequences to the ~150 million people of Russia will be devastating and very material, as in they will literally live shorter lives. Every boomer should know this because last time it happened the whole spectacle was a regular evening news topic. Boomers don't actually remember it, but I do.
There's also another aspect to this. When the USSR collapsed, people who had been citizens of one country now found themselves living in separate countries defined by the administrative borders of the old Soviet republics. A lot of people in Ukraine weren't interested in being part of an emerging antisemitic shithole. There was a long history of rule through antisemitic violence in pre-revolution Ukraine and they're emerging bourgeoisie successfully revived it (Jews fled enmasse from all of the capitalist restoration USSR, not just Ukraine, but the revial of antisemitism in Ukraine was particularly bad there). The parts of Ukraine seeking to instead unify with Russia have been violently attacked by the Ukrainian government.
In the 10 years prior to the current war 14000 people in the Russia aligned regions were killed. Russia intervened at a time when the shelling of civilian centers was rapidly escalating. In fact, this appeared very much as a provocation, probably meant to give the west a pretense to justify a proxy war with Russia. Why would Zelensky agree to this? Good question. I would assume he's been promised protection from being prosecuted for his financial crimes, which weren't secret too many years ago.
This is what happened. It's impossible to look at this honestly and without the lense of liberal anti-Russian racism and place the blame for this conflict on the Russian Federation.
Oh, and another thing. If Russia collapses, then NATO gains the ability to militarize a massive land border with China. Everything about this is a disgusting move to transfer working class wealth into the hands of a few western capitalists.
Edit: If I said something stupid, don't be shy. I would love to find out this situation isn't as bleak as I think it is. @Dolores@hexbear.net in a comment below mine does give some important details. It doesn't change anything. NATO is and was seeking to extract profits from Russia. It's obvious to people on the ground. As evidence, there was virtually no domestic resistance to the annexation of Crimea. This is a population that clearly did not want to be pillaged by the rest of Europe.
Hi!! There are a few issues with your evaluation of the RAND report; you link the brief here but the same applies for the full report, and wrt the distinction, "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia" is the title of the brief and not of the report ("Extending Russia: Competing From Advantageous Ground"), but obviously that's not a big deal. Where the real issue starts is when you move from the correct statement that the report "suggests sending arms to Ukraine" to the incorrect statement "and provoking a war." Both the brief* and the full report** clearly warn that it's necessary to balance military support between weakening Russia "and provoking a war." While this supports the aspect of your argument that Russia was forced by the US/NATO to invade Ukraine, it does not support the aspect arguing that this was done purposefully to overextend Russia.
*"But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages."
**"The Ukrainian military already is bleeding Russia in the Donbass region (and vice versa). Providing more U.S. military equipment and advice could lead Russia to increase its direct involvement in the conflict and the price it pays for it. Russia might respond by mounting a new offensive and seizing more Ukrainian territory. While this might increase Russia’s costs, it would also represent a setback for the United States, as well as for Ukraine."
"Most of these measures—whether in Europe or the Middle East—risk provoking Russian reaction that could impose large military costs on U.S. allies and large political costs on the United States itself. Increasing military advice and arms supplies to Ukraine is the most feasible of these options with the largest impact, but any such initiative would have to be calibrated very carefully to avoid a widely expanded conflict."
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Start with the 2014 coup, how the country's far-right literally took over through violence and then started an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Eastern regions
Make a note of how these are the people demanding NATO membership
it's an important detail that Russia was not twiddling its thumbs while the far right took a grip of Ukraine, they used the opportunity to secure Crimea (Sevastopol is where the Black Sea Fleet is based) and immediately began arming the nascent separatists in Donbass, then not long after sending actual troops as well. These acts were in naked self-interest, Russia was never comfortable with the condominium in Sevastopol and the ongoing territorial dispute re: Donbass separatists was a low-cost way to theoretically disbar Ukraine from NATO membership in perpetuity1.
Attempts to stabilize that situation and keep Ukraine safely out of NATO for the foreseeable future with the ceasefires failed, and NATO/Ukraine kept sabre rattling making like they'd admit Ukraine to NATO with the ongoing territorial disputes anyway, leading to a much larger and frankly tardy full commitment of Russia's resources in 2022.
1: NATO's protocol to defend any members in a conflict is believed to foreclose the possibility for them to enter, as NATO would be drawn into a preexisting conflict.
I’m not sure if that was done by right-wing militias or official forces
the line between the two was/is very blurred as nazis were the first mobilized and most enthusiastic elements of the AFU in the Donbass. However, those nazis were most responsible for violating the Minsk ceasefire protocols, sometimes in violation of the orders from their government. there's a darkly funny clip of Zelenskyy personally yelling at them to obey the ceasefire (they did not)
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I can give a short, high-level assessment and I'm sure other hexbears will come with more sources etc. but:
NATO was designed to be an anticommunist military alliance to weigh against the SSRs in post-WWII Europe. Its anti-Russian attitude has maintained beyond the collapse of USSR, as Russia has continued to be a regional power outside of neolib control.
Because Russia has not completely capitulated to the neoliberal, globalist world order represented by NATO, the EU, and the USA, NATO seeks to defang Russia through economic ruin and by recruiting its neighbors to basically instantly start a nuclear WWIII if Russia acts in a geopolitical way that the NWO (neolib world order) does not approve.
Russia, for its part, does not want 20+ countries' armies and nukes pointing directly at its western border. Russia is also compelled to protect ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, who have been under persecution and assault for the last ten years.
Now to be dunked on for my own rudimentary understanding
Americans IN Europe
Germans DOWN
Russians OUT OF Europe
explicitly NATO's goals, I forget who said it
When the USSR fell, Reagan promised Gorbechev that NATO would not expand. What's the point of NATO when there was no more USSR/Warsaw pact, it was "The End of History" after all.... Well NATO kept expanding East, closer and closer to Russian borders. Western propaganda will tell you NATO is a defensive alliance, but it's totally an offensive alliance to project US-Western power, just look at how they destroyed Libya.
With the NED/CIA maidan coup in Ukraine, Ukraine turned into a hotbed for Russophobia. The Ukraine military was getting trained by NATO, and there were talk of Ukraine joining NATO. That was the red line for Russia.
What's the point of NATO when there was no more USSR/Warsaw pact,
nato even predates the pact. it is and always has been the "fuck russia club"
Just read all the comments in the newsmega thread starting in Feb 2022 and you'll be all caught up!
Glad this is so easily answered nowadays. Sure ideally Russia would figure out how to work with its neighbors in spite of NATO's covert & overt actions, but ideally the ruling class of the US & NATO wouldn't be insane neoconservatives lying to themselves to justify their weapon contracts' dividends.
Both Russia and the US want control and influence over Ukraine, basically.
