In fairness, it's pretty nuts if you're just an ordinary person, to believe someone would be insane enough to invade your country for virtually no reason.
I try to think about this by putting myself in Putin's shoes but i keep drawing blanks. I only see downsides to the invasion and no upside from the perspective of Russia. I must be missing something huge that has a value > than the cost because the cost, in all terms, is very very high.
I think he is gambling that he can "Shock and Awe" his way across Ukraine in a few days with minimal casualties. And then quickly install a new government or declare Ukraine a Russian territory.
This is probably why he gave such a strong warning against NATO intervention (re: veiled nuclear threat), he doesn't want anyone interfering with that initial push, which could then lead to a long drawn out conflict.
And this is also probably why Trump, Tucker and other hard right leaders and factions are still parroting pro-Putin propaganda. If "Shock and Awe" works, then the "post-war" narrative is going to switch to something like "See that wasn't a big deal, the media was just scaremongering, the Ukrainian people did not want to fight, and prefer to be a part of Russia. Everyone needs to chill out and move on."
This is not to say that I don't think Putin is crazy. But just trying to read between the lines, I think they think they can get away with this. After all they did invade Crimea with little pushback. On one hand, I hope Ukraine will pull through, but on the other hand, I do worry that the longer this draws out, the further we get away from Putin's playbook, and then more erratic he will be. But if this thing is over in a few days, watch for the right wing to start pushing for a quick return to normalization with Russia.
Pretty much everywhere[1]. "Far right" is more accurate than "right wing". But tldr, Putin and Russia have been building ties with far right and evangelical parties and groups across the west for the past decade or two.
An example of this tie between far right and the putin-russian narrative seems to be the reporter Patrick Lancester on various social media sides, that reports the conflict from inside the "seperatist regions" but in english and for the western audience. I don't know whether he's been pushed, though. From the very few of his hundrets of videos I saw, I feel like he's genuinly believing what he's reporting. I don't know whether he is pushed, but I believe it's possible that he's getting supported. Even unbeknownst to himself through "crowdfunding".
The gamble is that the west will back off and leave him in possession of Ukraine, as they did with Crimea. Then he can gradually extend control over other encircled states to the north of belarus. More counties to loot, more resources to share with his friends. Absolutely zero personal consequences for him.
He’s quite happy to sacrifice the lives and prosperity of millions of Russian people if necessary in pursuit of this plan. He’s quite happy to preside over chaos and destruction and call it peace.
Putin won’t stop until he is stopped with force and he has very clearly stated his long term goals - the expansion of the Russian empire for his profit. He has not been subtle about this, the invasion was planned at least weeks ago and the signs were all there:
You say that now, but would anyone believe a few years ago that Putin could suborn US democracy (The republican president calls him a ‘genius’ after this attack and is visibly subservient when they meet), fund the Brexit campaign and encourage an ambivalent policy in the EU?
His stated goal is to reconstitute the USSR. One route past the nato problem would be to fund opposition groups in these states, poison opponents and induce them to leave NATO prior to invasion.
If he is allowed to take Ukraine he will not stop there.
> I only see downsides to the invasion and no upside from the perspective of Russia.
Not everything comes down to dollars and cents. The Russian president spelled out in his speech that he believes that Ukraine has always been a region of Russia, and never an independent state, and therefore he believes it has no right to an independent existence. The motivations are mostly in historical terms, even if there are economic gains for Russia in the end.
Also, an authoritarian state like Russia using its military might to shut down a nascent democracy like Ukraine is a pretty powerful narrative for the pre-emininence of the former type of government over the latter. There has been quite a bit of solidarity on this subject between authoritarian governments like Russia and China in recent years.
Once you have as much as Putin, have toadies listening to your every whim and reinforcing every paranoia -- its easy to just start doing stupid things. Small people do it all the time, at smaller scales, big despots go big. Thats why the most important thing is to keep term limits. Power increses expotentially with time in office.
The cost to the Russian people is high, but the cost to Putin and his entourage is yet another toothless freeze on overseas assets (the ones they know about), some irrelevant protests in Moscow, and a hefty increase in oil prices.
Isn't oil price increasing good for Russia though? Their oil isn't as cheap to extract so price increasing multiplies their profit very significantly if they can find a buyer.
The sanctions being levied against them will impair their ability to sell to a large portion of the world, including current (well, now former I suppose) trade partners in Europe. While they could try to undercut the global price in order to make their oil more appealing to remaining trade partners, it's going to be a challenge depending on how the current and future sanctions develop to even get to market.
A quick search gives this as the answer to who their largest oil buyers are: China, the European Union, South Korea, India and Japan.
China will do what China wants here. But South Korea, Japan, and the European Union will end up being harder to sell to, if possible at all, in the near future. India is a toss-up, depends on how they decide to participate in all this.
Russia made a deal with Ukraine like 30 or 40 years ago that Ukraine wouldn't join EU or NATO.
For unknown reasons Ukraine started to want to join EU and/or NATO.
If Ukraine joins NATO then Russia would be basically surrounded by NATO forces.
The biggest issue here is that USA has been placing rockets near the borders of Russia in NATO countries and these rockets just happen to face Russia. If Ukraine joined NATO, who's to say that USA wouldn't place rockets there's as well and thus have an incredibly huge reach into Russia.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a pacifist, if I could I would remove all militaries, there's really no reason to have them, since I believe that with rational conversation you can solve any and all issues.
But a fact is still a fact even if you don't like it...
I've been waiting for ten years and am still waiting for my country to legalise marijuana.
Everyone just needs to chill~
Can't we just pass the joint around and be friends?
So I’ve heard this rocket argument for a long time, never been presented with verifiable sources but I’ve also though that it seems plausible that the US would and indeed have done this. So if we take this as fact, which I’m not saying I do, but if – wouldn’t invading and annexing Ukraine basically inch Russia even closer to these missiles? I see Poland and Romania right there, and they are in fact NATO members are they not?
Also, what strategic value does Ukraine have, that for instance the Baltic countries (also NATO members) do not? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling that the “Russia doesn’t like NATO and Ukraine becoming a member is a bridge too far” argument feels more like a straw man than anything else.
I’m probably just too dumb to get it, so if someone more enlightened would like to clarify why invading Ukraine helps the Russian anti NATO effort I’d be much obliged!
It really doesn't. The strategic value is in securing the coast for good (Crimea was still kinda exposed), clearing up the wild-west they themselves created around Donbass, and providing a new avenue for gas pipelines, effectively neutering any Ukrainian leverage over Russia forever and ever. The NATO-expansion argument is just propaganda, not even the Russians really believe it.
I don't think NATO-expansion argument is propaganda, but I do agree that that's not the reason for Russia's actions.
That's mostly because in terms of NATO war isn't allowed, thus generally speaking there's isn't a lot of reason to be scared of the huge army that NATO represents.
What's really annoying to me as a coder and gamer is that, strategically speaking what Russia did was logical and expected. I'm speaking from a point of view of if this was StarCraft, EU4, CK2 or Civ5. And from that point of view, my biased monkey brain is telling me that if US left the EU alone, there wouldn't be a possible WW3 brewing...
Mildly interesting note, my father is studying Multinational law thing and we were talking about the role of NATO, the function it serves. We got to that topic because my argument was that my country (Slovenia) should either stop having a military or focus on having few but very specialised units, because as it is now, it's mostly just a waste of money, that's because we've got a population of ~2 million and about ~4-7k military units, depending on how you count them. Regardless, it's a number that compared to other countries is not even note worthy. Which is why my argument was that our military in its current state is a waste of money. BUT because we're so small we don't really have air forces, which is where NATO comes in. Because we don't have air forces our air is protected by currently Hungarian forces and the ones from Italy a few years ago.
What I was trying to find out with the conversation with my father was, if there's a way to gain the protection of NATO without having an army. But sadly that's not possible, because too be in the NATO, you have to have an army... There also UN which could protect you, but there response isn't guarantied and the response time is much longer then NATO. Thus ima way you're kinda forced to have an army...
I would still prefer removing our army, I mean... We've got pretty lakes and nice mountains, also good wine, why would anyone want to attack us? :D
The US continued to keep NATO around, despite the end of the Cold War in the '90s, because it's a huge program for the American defense industry. NATO membership requires a country to have capabilities with certain standards, which largely force them to buy American weaponry. As such, they would never consider full membership for an army-less country, except maybe in very exceptional circumstances (the Vatican? Lol).
But I agree that in the modern world, conventional armies tend to be a massive waste of money. It's just that occasionally a Putin-level threat comes along, and at that point you'll be glad you have them.
I'm not "enlightened", and you can draw your own conclusions. But they don't have to annex Ukraine, they can just mess it up and cripple its military. At the least, Putin's stated aim is "demilitarization" of Ukraine.
As for the comparison with the Baltic states, I would note that this entire situation evolved over decades. Perhaps Russia would have more strongly opposed NATO membership for the Baltics had it been in a more powerful position when that was happening. Perhaps they thought that NATO-expansion would stop there.
A lot has happened in the past 3 decades and some patterns are much more clear now than they were back then. One that Putin has repeatedly pointed to is that the USA is continuously supporting overthrow of governments that it doesn't like, even in the case of democratically-elected Yanukovich in Ukraine.
Maybe Putin is paranoid to think the same can happen in Russia, maybe not. But I think in his view, maintaining the nuclear deterrent with the West is an existential concern, like it had been for the USSR. Having NATO missiles and bases in Ukraine is clearly a step in the wrong direction for that concern.
I'm not saying that this justifies war or that Putin is right. I just think that Putin perceives himself as a cornered rat, and that from this perspective his actions make a lot more sense than just seeing him as deranged or a power-hungry demagogue. This perspective is laid out more fully in this talk by John Mearsheimer if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4&t=120s
This is obviously a very sensitive topic at this time, and I hesitate even to post this comment. But I think everyone should be free to draw their own conclusions.
that's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. But it's not fact, and none of us are in Putin's head and know what he thinks. This is simply one perspective
> For unknown reasons Ukraine started to want to join EU and/or NATO.
Could it perhaps be related to the fact that they were promised neutrality (also by Russia) in exchange for giving up their nuclear weapons... and then Russia invaded Crimea anyway?
The Ukraine NATO talks were the direct precursor to the Crimea invasion and were ongoing before that. Russia has black sea navy assets in Crimea and per NATO, Ukraine couldn't support Russian military assets in the country while simultaneously joining NATO. Russia needs them there, so they took Crimea proactively to preserve their naval position in the event Ukraine joined NATO.
It's not an argument, it is well documented fact. A cursory reading with any detail of the 2014 crisis will mention this. Russia has it's only warm water port in Crimea as per an agreement between Russia and Ukraine upon Ukraine's independence from the USSR. Ukraine joining NATO means Russia must withdraw from that port. This is militarily not an option for Russia, so you get the annexation of Crimea.
Putin's shoes but i keep drawing blanks. I only see downsides to the invasion and no upside from the perspective of Russia
That's your problem. Putin doesn't care about Russia. This invasion has nothing at all to do with the economic or strategic well-being of the nation of Russia. This has to do with the preservation and expansion of the political power of one single man and his oligarchal cronies. The rest of the country can burn as long as they hold power.
Exactly. Like I tried to explain to someone here earlier today: stop using Russia as your reference point, switch to Putin as your reference point and it all makes a lot more sense.
Biggest mistake the West has made is thinking that soft power will work with Putin. He just doesn't care. Sanction some oligarchs and he still goes home to his palace like nothing ever happened.
NATO has been steadily moving in towards Russia, picking off ex-Soviet satellite states one by one, and withdrawing from the treaties that kept the EU safe:
This was one of the pivotal moments:
"US President George W Bush, in 2002, pulled the US out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which banned weapons designed to counter ballistic nuclear missiles."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49198565
It has nothing to do with NATO, it is just another lie invented as excuse to invade. Here they still have it on the kremlin website:
"I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners."
And? That statement occurred 4 or 5 months before the USA had withdrawn from the ABMT.
I don't know enough about Russia's changing attitudes towards the USA: how much of it was hope that they could work things out together to jointly oppress the rest of the world; how much of it was biding time in a weakened state before they could mount a plausible defence against the USA.
But it does seem probable that the prospect of being left without the possibility of firing nuclear weapons at the US while staging bases are set up ever close to Russia would be undesirable to Russia.
Do not take from this that I am defending Russia's actions. I have no interest in either a US nor a Russian Imperium and think that the Ukranian right to manage their own affairs without being attacked is paramount. The same way that I believe that Venezuela and Iran have a right not to be attacked.
NATO did not move towards Russia by its own desire, as you imply.
All the neighbors of Russia have always known that one must expect that Russia will invade them at the first opportunity, so they made efforts to join NATO as it was obvious that like Ukraine, they do not have enough resources to fight alone against Russia.
Entering NATO was not easy for them, because the main NATO countries imposed a lot of conditions and the new NATO members had to actually unofficially pay their membership with billions of dollars in contracts awarded to companies from various old NATO members.
The NATO membership was not a free gift and it was paid dearly precisely because the new members were those who wanted the NATO expansion, to be protected against the Russians.
It was not the old NATO who desired the expansion towards Russia.
Moreover, calling the new NATO members as "ex-Soviet satellite states" is an insult. They have never been satellite states by their own will.
All the countries from the Eastern Europe are states who have been invaded by the Russians during WWII and where the Russians were able to install puppet governments and steal whatever they wanted as a consequence of the agreements between USA and Great Britain with Stalin.
The states from Western Europe have paid their freedom from Hitler with little of their own money but mostly with what was not theirs to give, i.e. with the countries from Eastern Europe, which were given to the Russians.
