Alan B.

<< And given the number of countries that border Russia that are also NATO members! The pretext for the attack has no merit! And never ever threatened Russia! NATO has nothing but a defense posture and Putin knew it! >>

NATO’s raison d’être is to contain Russia. Led by the US, NATO has recruited every former Communist Bloc nation it possibly could. This is the reason we had a coup in Ukraine and a colour revolution in Belarus. The US will not rest until it has co-opted these two countries into NATO and made Russia’s containment complete. The former Soviet countries who've joined NATO have all been forced to take out huge loans they can't afford to spend up big on US weaponry. Poland for example has just signed up to $6 billion worth of US military equipment.

After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia requested to join NATO. Its request was rejected and the promises made to it that NATO would not move eastward have been continuously broken. Missile bases in Romania and Poland a few hundred kilometres from the Russian border are already a serious threat to Russia’s security. If Ukraine and Belarus were to join NATO, its military machine would sit right on Russia’s border. Imagine the US acquiescing to having Russian military bases even remotely near its borders. It wouldn’t stand for it. What gives the US the right to do this to Russia?

NATO's claim to be a purely defensive alliance is a lie. Russia has not threatened NATO countries. Russia has tried patiently for three decades now to negotiate treaties with NATO in order to achieve equal security for both Russia and the rest of Europe. It's been deceived and its offers ignored or rejected. And as it's refused to engage in good faith negotiations, NATO has all the while moved its military infrastructure ever closer to Russia’s borders.

Russia has every right to expect that Ukraine remain neutral territory. It is sad to see but not surprising that after years of constant provocation it has now resorted to military force.

Your off your head Fester!
diver dan,
You wouldn't say that if you knew what's actually going on !

diver dan,

What is happening there with that invasion is just too awful but you shouldn't dismiss it simply as "pro Russian" when people are trying to tell you why this terrible situation arose.

mhaze

<< approximately 30% of the Russian army is conscripts >>

Yes, Russian men are conscripted for twelve months. And yes, around a third of the entire Russian defence force does consist of conscripts, but that doesn’t mean the forces sent to Ukraine comprised that same percentage. Putin had in fact instructed that no conscripts were to be sent to Ukraine, but yes, apparently some were, 'almost all’ of whom have since been recalled.

<< Bronwyn talks here and in other threads about the "the rightwing extremists infesting their country[Ukraine]". Again what gets ignored is that roughly 50% of all identified neo-Nazis world-wide reside in Russia under the protective gaze of Putin and his cohorts. http://borgenproject.org/neo-nazis-russia >>

Pleased to see you’ve finally produced some evidence to support your claim. A single source is not substantive proof, but it is better than your previous effort. There's no link provided and when I Googled ‘There are an estimated 50,000-70,000 Neo-Nazis in Russia according to an ABC News report’, nothing came up, apart from the article you’d quoted. So really, I’m still far from convinced. Besides, an estimated 50 000 from an overall population of more than 145 million is around 0.003%. Australia’s or America's neo-Nazi presence is probably a similar percentage.

And where’s your evidence that 50% of the world’s neo-nazis reside in Russia?

As for my claims regarding the neo-Nazi presence in Ukraine, I can definitely provide multiple substantive sources.

<< Putin has sent armed mercenaries into Ukraine specifically to 'get' Zelinsky. >>

No, I don’t agree with the use of private mercenaries, whether Russian or American. I’d need to see some reliable evidence though if I’m to be convinced that Putin sent in private mercenaries to take out Zelenskyy. Killing Zelenskyy has never been a stated priority. Why else would he be so brazenly staging his many photo ops? He knows full well he's not a high priority target.

<< Oh, and they are Nazis. >>

Well, some individuals might be. I doubt the group as a whole is a fully-fledged Nazi outfit. Again, I’d need to see some evidence.

Individual

Says fester..
*…Russia is an anachronistic dictatorship replete with a propaganda machine spouting idiocies such as the degenerate west bringing the gay mardi gras parade to the Ukraine…*

That is not a simple statement from a propaganda machine; it’s the truth: The heart of the degeneracy of the West is it’s moral collapse, and the token of its moral collapse is the rainbow flag ideology which is actually a terrorist unit deliberately let loose on our society by our own Political establishment, (which I don’t support).

I think the people in the West who support the Russians, supported Trump for the same reasons. But my personal interests don’t extend into taking sides in foreign wars.

Dan

Dan,

I think the ideological war between commies and the west has been one of being pressed into a mold or being able to determine your own shape. That we can all express ourselves freely here I see as a triumph of democracy, not a sign of its degeneration. I find Bronwyn's commentary almost caricatured and comical. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a wonderful counter to Putin's efforts to instill paranoia and xenophobia in Russian citizens. It is absurd to think that a country with thousands of nukes targeting the west is in any danger of invasion.

The situation in the Ukraine is a logistical battle now, not an ideological one. Some are suggesting that Putin is finished if the invasion fails. Keeping supplies up to the Ukranian forces will ensure that it will fail. The use of hypersonic missiles by Russia would suggest that they are running low on inventory.