Ukraine forfeited sovereignty all the way back in 2014

There it is. Glad we found the position you’re working from.

A RAND report discussing hypothetical ways to pressure Russia is not evidence that the U.S. secretly planned and initiated Russia’s invasion. An opinion article by one strategist in 2021 is not a declaration of NATO policy. Chomsky, Kennan, Matlock, and a 1997 open letter can all argue that NATO expansion was strategically unwise without establishing that Ukraine forfeited its sovereignty or that Putin was compelled to invade.

You’re also confusing “this policy might provoke a reaction” with “the reaction was caused by the policy and is therefore justified.” Those are not the same sentence, no matter how much links you attach to them.

The report was published in 2019, after Russia had already invaded Ukraine in 2014. It discusses escalation risks; it does not say Russia was entitled to invade then, nor in 2022, nor does it transfer responsibility for Putin’s decisions to NATO. Try reading the dates as well as the adjectives.

The report was published in 2019, after Russia had already invaded Ukraine in 2014. It discusses escalation risks; it does not say Russia was entitled to invade, nor does it transfer responsibility for Putin’s decisions to NATO. Try reading the dates as well as the adjectives.

The paper written in 2019 describes how the invasion in 2022 was provoked?

Ah yes, a RAND report listing hypothetical US policy options two years before the UNPROVOKED RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE is apparently the same thing as NATO personally forcing Putin to do it. By that logic, reading a menu means you cooked the meal. The report may discuss escalation risks, but it doesn’t even suggest that NATO caused Russia’s aggression, much less turn the aggressor into the victim like we see here.

I bolded the correct answer to “what war” up there for ya, since I don’t think you were ever going to get there.

What war? Keep going, you’re almost there.

Holy fuck. Did you read the comment you just replied to?

Putin is playing the victim. Did you read the article you submitted?

Moscow increasingly views the Ukrainian strikes as attacks by NATO states because alliance members supply Kyiv with weapons and intelligence, the people said. The current phase of hostilities isn’t the peak of military escalation, they said.

President Vladimir Putin signaled his intentions in weekend comments to a state TV reporter, as he shrugged off the impact of the attacks on Russia’s economy. Ukraine “opened this Pandora’s box,” he said. “Well, be ready to get a blowback on your most sensitive sectors of the economy.”

it appears to be collateral damage (likely debris) from an attack aimed at other targets, not a planned strike on the childcare center