50 mil was in '91. Less than 40 at the beginning of war. No idea how many now. 20?
this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
272 points (92.5% liked)
Europe
4273 readers
146 users here now
Europa
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
(page 2) 43 comments
sorted by:
hot
top
controversial
new
old
load more comments
(1 replies)
Intent aside, wouldn't it be easier to shore up current defences? Ukraine is already the NATO crumple zone, it would make more sense to keep them at that line.
Now for blind conjecture. Perhaps trump sold out Ukraine to allow Russia to have the minerals and oil of Ukraine. In exchange, Europe gets the constant threat of WW3. Americans, scared to stay where they're at, but are more terrified by the prospects of open war as it sweeps across countries, stay on American shores.
load more comments
(7 replies)
Is Russia going to invade Germany? Do people really think that's what's going to happen?
Imagine saying that with a straight face
Unlikely. Baltic states though? Poland? Finland?
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania would likely be first as they are surrounded by water, Russia, and Belarus.
Moldova has a Russian separatist movement just like Ukraine had.
Well, did you think you could have been told that Russia invaded Ukraine? With a straight face?
This is what all the experts have been warning of literally since the 90s.
prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Even Gorbachev warned about this. All these experts were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine out of the blue and completely unprovoked.
We could also say that war over there actually started in 2014. But as you also stated, a lot of people were surprised since there is not a neo-liberal side against a communist side anymore since there is no communism anymore in Russia (Do you agree with this? Apart from the single-party political structure which can be called with various names, the economy is maybe watched by the gov but still liberal).
The fact that Russia is no longer communist and NATO has continued to expand and surround Russia is a clear demonstration that this has never been an ideological conflict. And that illustrates that Russia does indeed have legitimate security concerns, because it's clear that the goal of NATO expansion is to contain Russia.
Containing Russia is probably some thing due to the fact that Russia does not allow a political choice since decades
load more comments
(5 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
All the ex Warsaw begged for a membership, it wasn't the USA teasing them.
And in fact US denied Ukraine a NATO membership, and funnily it's been invaded.
It's been invaded precisely because the US refused to publicly state that Ukraine would not joined NATO and wanted to maintain ambiguity on the matter while arming Ukraine. Nice of you to try and twist that around though. Gold star for mental gymnastics.
Nope, US clearly said no to NATO for them already in 2009, much before the Russian invasions.
Dude, this stuff you're telling is at least three yo. It's been largely debunked.
All the ex Warsaw hate Russia even if they've slavic roots in common like Poland or Ukraine, just take a look on what that people state and do. This should tell you much about how much this people want to avoid Moscow's influence.
No, the US never took NATO off the table. At least try to lie about something that's not demonstrably false.
Nato is a defensive org, so it's absolutely not important for Russia if Ukraine joining that, unless Russia wants to conquer Ulraine, which is the only reason why they do not want thta to happen.
Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, and they did it. They don't want to have democracy close to their border, caise you know...people don't like to live in a dictatoriship.
load more comments
(4 replies)
I wonder what the mental gymnastics will be if/when Russia invades non-NATO countries like Moldova and Georgia.
Come back to me when any of your deranged fantasies actually come true and then we'll talk.
After three years in Ukraine, it's obvious to anybody with a minimally functional brain that Russia is not going to be able to invade Europe. However, what Russia will absolutely do is exploit the political instability in Europe caused by massive austerity needed to massively ramp up defense. Why invade the idiots when it's far cheaper to do political capture.
What is also obvious to anybody with a minimally functional brain is that Russia would invade if they thought they could. Therefore ramping up defence is a good idea to dissuade Russia from thinking it's a good idea. Even with that deterrence, those not covered by this (Moldova, Georgia, as mentioned) are still vulnerable.
It is a reasonable point that there needs to be a balance, as throwing the entire economy into the military by pulling societal investment will fan anti-EU pro-Russian sentiment, so a balance needs to be struck. From the tone, I doubt you're the right person to discuss the nuance though.
The opposite is obvious actually because Russia has a huge land area with a low population. Trading people for more territory would make absolutely no sense for Russia. Maybe time to check the functioning of that brain of yours, cause it's clearly not firing on all cylinders.
They are trying to. And the BS about needing defense is actually the traditional European fantasy of invading Russia, or now openly inviting nuclear annihilation of Europe to spare the US from non nuclear winter consequences.
Europe thinks it can serve the CIA in opposition to Trump, but there natural continuation of CIA sycophancy is more desperation to serve US empire. Increasing the stupidity level to 10, with mass military programs and nuclear threats, makes it easy to go to 11, with mass imports of US weapons when they conclude that they simply weren't stupid or lying enough on Russophobia.
Nobody wants to invade Russia, what the fuck?
Tusk/Poland do have another option for building up an army. At start of Ukraine war, there was Polish media endgame where Poland took a big chunk of western Ukraine. Russia may not care, except that Polish-Russian peace works just as well as a Ukraine-Russia peace for denazification.
Any crackhead in Europe who doesn't know they helped whitewash the US/Ukraine provocation. is a culpable idiot who want's war on Russia no matter how badly it has turned out so far.
If not for someone to stop him, yes Putin would march all the way back to East Germany. As it is, he's most likely going to get stuck before touching Poland. And touching Poland would be the end of Putin almost immediately.
Would it be the end of him even now, when he's backed by the US? That changes the dynamic and puts all of Europe in a tough spot. Europe against Russia is a piece of cake. Europe agaist Russia + US.. not so much.
It doesn't really change the power dynamic at all. Poland would end Putin, even if it meant their annihilation, and they have the capability to do it on their own. Also, as much as Trump is on Putins side, it's still actually illegal for US troops to invade European countries. And nothing but a law annulling US treaties from congress can change that. US treaties are US law is a basic foundation of military education. The sycophants at the top can't change that, meaning they will have dissension in the ranks when they try to send illegal orders.
Trump is caught in the problem that his approval drops faster as he breaks the law faster. And if it drops too fast, congress will fight back to keep their own jobs. Starting a war with NATO, Canada, or Mexico would be the end of him. As much as his cult follows him, they're still a minority of the country, and his hold on the media is simply driving the populace to uncontrolled media.
load more comments
(14 replies)