mhaze, are you kidding me?

>>'now riddled with neo-Nazis'
Now you’re just unthinkingly regurgitating Russia propaganda/misinformation. There is no evidence that the Ukrainian leadership are Nazis or Nazi sympathisers. Putin is just using the language of Antifa to justify his war. <<

Try digging a little bit.
Look up Right Sector, Svoboda, Stefan Bandera and Azov Brigade
Azov Brigade is a legitimate part of Ukrainian military, fyi.
Do you all just think I just make stuff up?
You must.

Do you think I'm lying when I say the US conducted the overthrow of Ukraine's democratically elected leader as well?

You're all off your chops, living in a fantasy world if you don't actually look at what happened in Ukraine over the last 8 years and how it came to be this way.

http://tass.com/world/983892
http://geohistory.today/azov-movement-ukraine/
http://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/

Did we forget this?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine-NATO_relations

Relations between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) started in 1992.[1] Ukraine applied to begin a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008.[2][3] Plans for NATO membership were shelved by Ukraine following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych, who preferred to keep the country non-aligned, was elected President.[4][5] Amid the Euromaidan unrest, Yanukovych fled Ukraine in February 2014.[6] The interim Yatseniuk Government which came to power initially said, with reference to the country's non-aligned status, that it had no plans to join NATO.[7] However, following the Russian military invasion in Ukraine and parliamentary elections in October 2014, the new government made joining NATO a priority.[8] On 21 February 2019, the Constitution of Ukraine was amended, the norms on the strategic course of Ukraine for membership in the European Union and NATO are enshrined in the preamble of the Basic Law, three articles and transitional provisions.[9][10]

At the June 2021 Brussels Summit, NATO leaders reiterated the decision taken at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine would become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process and Ukraine's right to determine its own future and foreign policy, of course without outside interference.[11] NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also stressed that Russia will not be able to veto Ukraine's accession to NATO, as we will not return to the era of spheres of interest, when large countries decide what smaller ones should do.[12]

According to polls conducted between 2005 and 2013, Ukrainian public support of NATO membership remained low.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] However, since the Russo-Ukrainian War and Annexation of Crimea, public support for Ukrainian membership in NATO has risen greatly. Since June 2014, polls showed that about 50% of those asked supported Ukrainian NATO membership.[20][21][22][23] Some 69% of Ukrainians want to join NATO, according to a June 2017 poll by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, compared to 28% support in 2012 when Yanukovych was in power.[24]

mhaze

<< So, in your estimation its just coincidence that Putin sought to address what he considers the Ukraine problem in the last years of the Obama regime and the first year of the Biden regime, but was silent while Trump was in charge? >>

The 2014 coup was instigated by the Obama/Biden government, so Putin was dragged into that. The timing was not his. Since then, Putin has sought to open diplomatic channels with the West and to negotiate an agreement. These efforts culminated in his written treaty proposals in December 2021, most of which the Biden government flatly refused to consider. Having exhausted all other avenues, Putin has now exercised this last resort military action. His waiting until now had nothing to do with the perceived strength or weakness of either Trump or Biden.

<< Would it be churlish to point out that you only need to contain countries that want to expand? >>

Russia is not trying to expand. It’s defending its own territory, as is its sovereign right to do so. It's resisting having its borders militarily surrounded and threatened by NATO ... again, as is its right. Russia does not want to annexe Ukraine. Its intent is solely to demilitarise and de-nazify its unstable and threatening neighbour.

<< There is no evidence that the Ukrainian leadership are Nazis or Nazi sympathisers. >>

I didn’t say the leaders were Nazis. I said the country was riddled with neo-nazis. The Ukrainian leaders since 2014 have been too weak and too disinterested to do anything about it. As pointed out by Armchair Critic, there are many disparate neo-nazi groups operating in Ukraine, some of the main ones being the Right Sector and Azov Brigade. They've been ruthlessly killing Russians in Ukraine since 2014. And yes, good advice of AC,s, do Google Stefan Bandera.

mhaze

<< They made some unwritten assurances to the USSR. Russia wasn’t a country then. >>

There was no formal written treaty, but the promises were made. It was clearly stated at meetings in 1990 between Russia, the US and West European nations that there would be no eastwards expansion of NATO. There’s an archived collection in Washington of thirty crucial documents which prove beyond doubt that the promises were made by multiple western leaders to Gorbachev as the USSR was being dismantled. This promise ... so critical to Russia’s safety and sovereign independence ... has been broken ... and this is at the heart of the current crisis. Ukraine has also broken the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements, which has been another heavy blow for Russia. These were all important agreements, all aimed at achieving peace in Europe.

Russia is not the evil aggressor it’s being painted to be in the Western mainstream media. Putin has tried to achieve peace in Europe through diplomatic means. He’s been thwarted by America at every turn. NATO and Russia need to sit down and negotiate a peace treaty. We need detente in Europe. Continually escalating aggressive measures against Russia will have world-threatening consequences.

>>“the West promised Russia that NATO would not move east”
False. They made some unwritten assurances to the USSR. Russia wasn’t a country then. It was before states like Poland were free to make their own choices, being, as they were, conquered peoples. Is it your view that countries like Poland who suffered 50 years of Russian oppression, don’t have the right to seek outside protection from a repeated conquest?<<

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

>>Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

Slavic Studies Panel Addresses “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?”<<

- Kind-of unrelated -
I heard one of the Maidan snipers came clean a few years back and said he was worked for the US
Not sure if it's true or not, and I haven't looked into the details as yet.

The Ukraine can thank Germany's wind/solar obsession for the timing of the invasion. With Germany just shutting down half of its nuclear reactors and Europe in winter, Putin knows they wont risk having the gas shut off. So its well wishes while they stand by and idly watch the destruction of a sovereign nation. Warsaw WWII all over again.