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canttouchmypingas t1_j5jgbpf wrote

Reply to comment by trisul-108 in [OC] Ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation, 2021 Census by greensino

Please don't mislead the public with disinformation:

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”

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This latter idea of special status for the GDR territory was codified in the final German unification treaty signed on September 12, 1990, by the Two-Plus-Four foreign ministers (see Document 25).

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The documents show that Gorbachev agreed to German unification in NATO as the result of this cascade of assurance

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According to the Russian memorandum of conversation, “Woerner stressed that the NATO Council and he are against the expansion of NATO (13 of 16 NATO members support this point of view).” (See Document 30)

Thus, Gorbachev went to the end of the Soviet Union assured that the West was not threatening his security and was not expanding NATO

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NATO’s expansion was years in the future, when these disputes would erupt again, and more assurances would come to Russian leader Boris Yeltsin.
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trisul-108 t1_j5jo46d wrote

There is nothing about it in the signed documents. These documents are public, I have read them. Please show me a signed document that promises Russia not to spread.

What happened is that Russia requested that NATO not spread to Eastern Germany and when Germany consulted with NATO, they found out that this cannot be guaranteed. Germany went back to Russia and Russia said OK and signed the document without this clause.

Now, if someone promised something to Russia while drinking whiskey or coffee, that is not an agreement. The agreement is what was signed.

Again, Russia signed its promise not to invade Ukraine a long time after NATO expanded. This is just a ridiculous KGB excuse for the invasion of a sovereign nation. This invasion is entirely illegal and nothing can justify it.

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canttouchmypingas t1_j5kpp37 wrote

Your claim:

So, now you invent that in 1. there was something about NATO not expanding, which is untrue.

Is 100% false.

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Allgoodonesaretaken9 t1_j5t6nfr wrote

Merkel, Hollande and Porochenko admitted that they signed the Minsk accords only to keep the Russians at bay and build up the Ukrainian army and build fortifications in the East. The shelling of civilians continued. They never meant to live up to it. Putin was naive. They had them encircled and could have beaten them in days. Now after 8 years and billions of dollars in equipment and training (all out of altruism and for democracy if course), it’s going to take years and hundreds of thousands of lives. All to prevent a region from getting the independence the majority of people want. I guess the democracy argument only holds for enemies of the empire like Kosovo with Serbia.

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trisul-108 t1_j5tgp86 wrote

But that was after Russia broke its commitments and annexed part of a country it promised never to attack. Ukraine could not defend itself and negotiations provided it with a needed breather. The Minsk accords were already in contradiction of the the UN Charter and the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

You can blow smoke all you like, but you cannot get around the fact that Russia had no right to the Donbas, had no right Crimea, all of it was illegal, done in bad faith in contravention of the UN Charter.

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Allgoodonesaretaken9 t1_j5tji8r wrote

Crimea has been Russian for centuries. The vast majority of people there want to be part of Russia, which explains why your brave Ukrainians didn’t fight back during the annexation and there hasn’t been a militia like in Donetsk and Lugansk to fight ‘the oppressor’. Maybe they didn’t want to be burned alive by Nazi’s, like what happened in Odessa.

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trisul-108 t1_j5tz6bt wrote

This is completely irrelevant. Ukraine is a sovereign nation, member of the UN, recognised as such by Russia and entitled to its territorial integrity. Russia has also signed a formal agreement never to move militarily against Ukraine and filed it with the UN.

The annexations and invasions are all illegal. There is no way around this.

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Allgoodonesaretaken9 t1_j5uhg9a wrote

So was the Soviet Union, so was Yugoslavia, Sudan, etc. Good to hear that at least you consider Taiwan part of China, so no need to get involved there, right?

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trisul-108 t1_j5ulrff wrote

Who annexed the Soviet Union, who annexed Yugoslavia, who annexed Sudan? There is no comparison.

As to Taiwan, it is a very complicated issue as both China and Taiwan claim to be the rightful ruler of all China. When you show the intellectual ability and honesty to grasp simple cases like Crimea, we can proceed to an analysis of complicated issues like Taiwan. Before that, judging on what you have said, I feel it is way above your head.

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Allgoodonesaretaken9 t1_j5ur8z2 wrote

Isn’t it interesting how things are always ‘complicated’ when it involves enemies of the empire but never when it involves nato-countries. The democracy argument only works when it suits you. So Catalunya can not be independent but Tibet can. Crimea can not be independent (outcome if the first of many referenda, where the overwhelming majority voted to break away from Ukraine, none of which you’ll accept because it doesn’t feed into your corporate media narrative) but Kosovo can. Just admit you don’t allow Russia and China a seat at the table because they pose a threat to your coveted Western mono-polar hegemony. That’s what this is all about, silly. You want another Jeltsin in the Kremlin but it ain’t happening. Cry about it, empire fanboi/girl/both/neither/back and forth.

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trisul-108 t1_j5v3h5a wrote

>Isn’t it interesting how things are always ‘complicated’ when it involves enemies of the empire but never when it involves nato-countries.

All of these stories are complicated, because they involve two competing rights, the right of peoples to self-determination competing against the right to territorial integrity. Ideally, both would be satisfied. The details matter and they vary.

You mention Catalonia. The Catalan and Spanish parliaments negotiated how to align these two rights and reached an agreement satisfactory to both parliaments, an agreement the involved a higher level of autonomy for Catalonia. The Constitutional Court of Spain found this to be counter to the constitution. Instead of amending the Constitution, the right-wing government of the time pushed for conflict. If not for the right-wingers, this would have been solved. I have never said this was OK. What would be right would be to honour the agreement between the parliaments.

With Tibet, it was just a land grab by China with elements of genocide. Just as they are doing genocide on the Uyghurs.

Crimea was also a land grab, there was no serious attempt to negotiate an agreement, the referendums were complete sham and unrecognised by observers. In fact, Russia used its power in the Security Council to veto any attempt by the international community to protect minorities or mediate an agreement because Russia always wanted to grab that land.

With Kosovo, instead of negotiating as Spain and Catalonia initially did and granting more autonomy, Serbia took away the autonomy Kosovo already had. Furthermore, other peoples in Yugoslavia used their right to self-determination, but Serbia denied that right to Kosovars. Serb leaders publicly proclaimed that Serbia wins in war and loses in negotiations and decided to use force, sure in the power of the Yugoslav army. They miscalculated, just as Putin has miscalculated. By deciding to use force instead of negotiation, they caused the right to self-determination to trump the right to territorial integrity.

Civilised nations, such as Czechs and Slovaks did it all peacefully, joined the EU and no harm done to anyone. Life proceeds normally between Czechs and Slovaks. Serbia, China and Russia are violent and insist on resolving these matters using force. That is the key difference. These countries think themselves powerful and that they can have attached slave-nations. Serbia failed immediately. Russia failed in Ukraine and China will also fail eventually.

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Allgoodonesaretaken9 t1_j5v7v4w wrote

The only thing Putin miscalculated was the Russophobia and the Empire devotion in Europe as exemplified by him signing the Minsk accords, whereas they (he’s not a dictator contrary to what your empire sources tell you) could have annihilated the Ukro army in weeks if not days. Of course neither Ukraine, Germany or France were ever planning on adhering to it, as they have admitted to recently, but he was naive enough to let NATO build up the Ukrainian army and continue to shell civilians in Donetsk for 8 years. Now it’s gonna take them years and thousands of lives (mostly Ukrainian) to liberate the Donbass. It will happen though, sorry. The gloves haven’t even come off yet.

The ‘civilized’ countries (aka the ones that are bowing down to US hegemony) tried twice before. Napoleon lost, the Nazi’s lost and NATO will lose too. Send yourself a remindme to rub it in if you want to.

Remindme! 1year

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trisul-108 t1_j5v98zx wrote

He miscalculated when he decided to go to war. He miscalculated badly. He was prepared to win in 5 days and thought that the West would not support Ukraine, that Zelenskyy would run, that NATO would be weakened and the EU would be weakened.

In reality, Ukraine beat the first wave of Russian attacks and pushed them back, he never expected this. The Russian army is shown to be ineffective. NATO is much strengthened and is now expanding. The West is increasing military spending. The EU is strengthened. Russia is failing.

Putin badly miscalculated everything that could be calculated ... He has no way back and is forced to continue a losing war.

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Allgoodonesaretaken9 t1_j5vom9h wrote

Oh boy are you in for a surprise. Remindme 6 months!

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trisul-108 t1_j5vr6dt wrote

Exactly, we shall see.

I suspect you were also telling Europeans 6 months back how we will all freeze when Russia shuts off our gas. It turned out to be just another bit of GRU propaganda.

We will see how $1.3tn GDP Russia will fare against the $55tn economy of the West that it wants to destroy. The West has a stronger economy, finances, military, diplomacy, social cohesion, education, media ... any aspect you can name. Russia only has parity in nuclear weapons which it cannot use because of MAD. But, we'll see.

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