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Oof some tough questions for them
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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There's no evidence of this, though. Scaremongering about Russia taking Paris and whatnot has no economic backing. Russia has been clear about why it invaded Ukraine, it wants to demillitarize it as it was cozying up to NATO, and NATO has been encircling Russia for decades. If NATO didn't exist, there would be no reason for the Russo-Ukrainian war to begin with, as Russia doesn't stand to gain much, if anything, economically.
How many of their NATO neighbors have they attacked vs their non-NATO neighbors? There's a reason countries want to join it lol
Why do you think Russia invaded Ukraine? Like, what is their primary goal. The impetus that drove them to approve the invasion.
Secondly, what do you think the functioning role of NATO is?
They wanted to prevent them from joining because they couldn't bully them if they managed to join. I think that answers for both.
So the underlying, material reason for why you think Russia invaded Ukraine, was because they wanted to "bully" Ukraine? And that NATO is just an international "anti-bullying" alliance? No, lmao.
NATO is an alliance of imperialist nations. They band together, agreeing to each exploit their own corner. The biggest players are the US Empire, as well as the former hegemons Germany, the UK, and France. The other NATO members play along so that they can ride along on this system of monopoly capitalism expropriating vast wealth from South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and more. If countries go against NATO desires economically, they get bombed, like Yugoslavia, Libya, etc.
NATO promised Gorbachev that they wouldn't expand eastward, decades ago. This is because originally, NATO was an anti-communist alliance. However, with the fall of the USSR, the west needed a new enemy, so they stuck with Russia even after Russia tried to join NATO. With NATO building up in Ukraine, following the Euromaidan coup of 2014 cementing the Ukrainian Nationalists as the leaders of Ukraine, and their relentless shelling of the donbass region, Russia invaded as it didn't feel like it wanted a belligerent neighbor, and decided to take pre-emptive action.
The entire invasion never would have happened without NATO.
You've quite rudely ignored my question even though I promptly answered yours.
Because it doesn't matter. Russia hasn't attacked NATO countries, sure. Unless you're saying western imperialism is a good thing, and that it was correct to encircle and reject Russia's attempts to join NATO. You're JAQing off.
It doesn't matter that Russia hasn't attacked NATO countries but it has and currently is attacking non-NATO countries? Interesting take
It only makes sense if your conclusion is that, genetically, Russians just love attacking people. If you ignore the real, materialist explanation for events and substitute it with a deliberate refusal to acknowledge the actual causes, then you're only left with racism. Earlier, your only reason was "bullying," so if you really do believe it's a genetic thing then that checks out.
I'd love you to prove me wrong about that, though.
I was just saying that none of the members have got attacked by Russia and quite a few of the non-members have. Might be an indication of something. Not sure where you got genetics from tbh.
Nah, you know exactly what you're doing.
I don't know how you got from countries and military alliances into genetic traits to attack other countries. Pretty big leap imo.
I've heard some .ml people call NATO a virus but I didn't think it was literal
It's pretty simple, I explained how and why Russia invaded Ukraine, and NATO's role. You never responded to that, and instead said Russia invaded Ukraine because it can only "bully" non-NATO countries. There's no materialism in your explanation, no underlying economic reasoning, just pure "Russia invaded Ukraine because Russians are evil" nonsense.
You've also been vaguely suggesting that western imperialism is a good thing, so that chauvanism tracks. Russia in your eyes is a "bullying country" and NATO in your eyes is an "anti-bully alliance," which holds no actual water.
I was just saying that NATO countries haven't been attacked by Russia whereas non-NATO countries have, so it might be that the membership has maybe something to do with it.
I thought it was a simple point but you've since brought up genetics and good and evil into it, which honestly surprises me since I don't know where you got any of that
It has something to do with the calculus behind the final decision, but not why it happened in the first place. You're free to reread my comments and JAQ off.
I'm not sure what the math is behind it but if it works it works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Because they want to become a global power once again. That is their dream. They want to be imperialists themselves, but unfortunately for them, they have failed to do so. In the past decades they have poked their noses into Africa and the Middle East, with some success. But simultaneously they have lost their grip on regions they previously considered to be under their imperialist umbrella. It started with Georgia, which they solved with violence. Next it was Ukraine, and then Syria. And then all the unrest in Belarus. They got spooked that their imperialist dream was failing, so they went in to change the regime in Ukraine. But that didn't work out as they planned. And to top that, they also lost their foothold in Syria completely. And now, just recently, they are losing Azerbaijan too.
Honestly, it is to protect US geopolitical interests in Europe. Making Europe depend on the US for its defense. But it is not that bad of a deal for Europe, as it keeps the peace (in "western" Europe).
Russia was never "imperialist" in the way the west is. They never had an Empire as the Soviet Union. Russia cannot become an empire by invading other countries, imperialism functions by massive financial capital to extract from the global south. Russia doesn't have the capital for that, and is more industrialized than western countries that need it to stay afloat.
As for NATO, it's to ensure western imperialism stays intact. The US is the main beneficiary, but western Europe participates because they also profit from brutal exploitation of the global south.
But they did. That's why Mao called them social imperialists.
That just brings into question how NATO is a threat to Russia then? The only way that would be true is that either a) Russia sees them as imperialist competition, or b) the threat is that Russia can't attack its neighbors without retribution.
They weren't. The Soviet Union never developed the financial capital with which to extract super profits, it had no colonies. Mao was wrong. The Sino-Soviet split was filled with drama, and both sides were right about some things and wrong about others.
NATO is a threat the same way your neighbors that hate you all buying guns and joining together millitarily is a threat. In the event of war, it's right on your doorstep. Encirclement is a known tactic, the US does it in another form, by using aircraft carriers and millitary bases.
I acknowledge the argument NATO is encircling Russia. To what extent does Ukraine differ from other actions by Russia such as Georgia in 2008? Which sorts of actions are not resistance to NATO encircling?
Ukraine is an interesting case, due to the Euromaidan coup in 2014 leading to the nationalists taking control. Prior to Euromaidan, relations with Russia weren't so bad, actually.
My understanding of Euromaidan is likely tainted, but wasn't that a Ukrainian alignment to the European Union and not NATO? Aligning to the European Union would still be a move away from Russian influence.
It was generally a pro-western coup. You can't really disentangle the EU from NATO from the US along clean lines, they have lots of overlap. NATO, in 2021, affirmed its plans of further integrating Ukraine.
Really, Euromaidan was sparked by Yanukovych pivoting away from the more predatory IMF loan offer to the less predatory Russian loan offer. Indeed, the loan from Russia had better terms, the IMF loan would have forced Ukraine to slash their healthcare and education budgets, and stop subsidies in natural gas (which kept energy prices low) as part of the loan terms.
yeah, they could have been like Belarus!
Sure.
What reason do you think is behind the war?
Dunno, I live in the US. Surely you can look it up, no? Nice 2 month old, 1 comment account, by the way.
Nothing I said was wrong, nor does that make it "Russian propaganda." The RF has been clear, they oppose NATO encirclement. Gorbachev was promised decades ago that NATO wouldn't expand eastward, yet it has over the decades. NATO is used primarily as a threat towards countries that don't let the west economically dominate them, be it the USSR to Iran to Libya to Yugoslavia to the modern Russian Federation.
Joining NATO is indeed voluntary, yes. Russia even tried to join it a couple decades ago, and was denied. Russia was barred entry from the imperialist alliance, as if they were allowed in, NATO could not be used as a threat against them to force them to open up their economy more. The ex-soviet now-NATO states faced immense economic crisis and right-wing takeover due to the chaos that ensued when socialism was ended and the USSR dissolved, making them very western-friendly.
No, I'm not a Trump supporter, I'm a communist. I strongly oppose western imperialism, and based on the evidence we have, there's no proof that Russia intends on taking on all of Europe. This is just scaremongering to fuel the millitary industrial complex and justify the perpetuation of NATO even after the collapse of the USSR, which it was formed to fight.
Either Russia is too weak to take Ukraine and thus NATO isn't even necessary, or it's strong enough but uninterested in total war and is happy with its level of involvement. The former means NATO isn't even needed as Russia would be too weak, the latter means NATO isn't needed as Russia has no plans to expand, nor does it have any economic basis for it.
I think it's very telling that you can't actually dispute any of my points, you just call me Russian and a Trump supporter for stating the standard leftist line on NATO and the Russo-Ukrainian War.