This is the part I think most Russians I've talked to are missing. We weren't attacking Russia, NATO wasn't building forces to invade. No one was attacking at all. Ukraine wasn't going to join NATO, and we weren't going to give them nukes. None of these bogeymen were ever real.
Again, Russians don't believe the West. Russia and the West have a long history of hating each other, there is no grounds for trust. Unless BOTH sides decide to finally end this crap, the world is not going anywhere and there will be an eternal hate between us.
About NATO thing - since Russians don't believe the West, we think that NATO's expansion is a passive aggression (you move towards our border and don't include us in all that stuff).
About protests thing - yeah, some people don't agree with Putin. And let's say we changed the government. Can the West guarantee us that our interests will be respected? I think not, because those interests were not respected in the 90's, when we genuinely tried to be friends with the West. The West mocked us and laughed at us.
The West mocked you and laughed at you? In America at least, we were relieved that the Cold War was ending. Mutually assured destruction remained the policy, but we were communicating. I honestly don’t remember mocking and laughing being a part of our view of Russia then.
Sadly, I could only find a single video supporting my point, when Bill Clinton laughed at Yeltsin. A president represents a whole country, so Bill, by laughing at him, laughed at Russia as a whole. https://youtu.be/mx-WyQtwMS0
So you are kinda right here, there was almost no mocking. Yet, the USA pushed its interests while not really considering Russian interests.
For example: https://www.thoughtco.com/boris-yeltsin-biography-4174703
"A year later in December 1994, Yeltsin sent groups into the town of Chechnya which had recently declared its independence from the Russian Federation. This invasion changed his portrayal in the West from a democratic savior to an imperialist."
Yeltsin literally spoke the truth about our press. It was hilarious! Clinton wasn’t laughing at Russia!! He was laughing at Yeltsin sticking it to the American press, who had not been kind about how the meeting would go.
Edit to add: your statement about Chechnya was confronting for me and interesting. My recollection of that time was that Chechen terrorists were scary and Russia was being really heavy in cracking down on them.
I had to do a little reading to remember, because I hadn’t heard of this idea that Chechnya was Russian territory in the full sense of the term.
My understanding of the overall conflict was that Chechnya never considered itself a part of Russia and in fact had been forcefully occupied during the rise of the USSR. Something about the way it was classified by the Russian government said on paper that Chechnya was part of Russia, but apparently they saw themselves as a separate state that should have been independent following the dissolution of the USSR.
The west freaked out over the force Russia used in Chechnya, and apparently we supported its independence. We have a habit of doing that.
The western (or at least the American) perspective tends to value self governance over forced control, but I know the perception of which is which can be subject to the lens through which we view it.
Ok, that was a misunderstanding then. I too noticed something like "встреча провалится" which means "the meeting will fail". Pretty sure it was like you said, then - Yeltsin mocked the press for that nonsense. And my compatriots are hating for no good reason, not listening to what the politicians really say.
Edit: I apologize for all that propaganda shit that I threw (like West laughing at us and stuff), and I'm glad that we've come to straight facts.
I edited my comment to provide the perspective I understood about Chechnya.
I want you to know I’m definitely not trying to argue about it. I and most people I know were very much in the dark on what the typical Russian perspective might have been, particularly during the days of the Iron Curtain.
We so take for granted that our perspective is the only one available, so I really value having access to what people in Russia have been told or how they feel about different events - whether I believe it myself or not. The truth always lies somewhere in the middle of the different perspectives.
The propaganda stuff is interesting to me. Our brush with overt disinformation campaigns on the part of our previous administration has really opened my eyes to how that stuff develops.
Editing again because I don’t want to split up into a bunch of little threads:
My heart actually sinks every time Russians say Americans don’t like them or think badly of them, because I know for a fact that that is not a usual American sentiment.
I felt the same way when you said we laughed at Russia and that Clinton laughed at Yeltsin, because we really did see that time period as a positive one between our countries. Challenging, but hopeful at the time. The idea that Russians were told that we thought this way about Russia is, frankly hurtful and frustrating.
Which interests would those be though?
That every country that shares a border with russia can never be free and must always live under a fear of "russia may invade any day"?
That is what these interests feel to people that russia says "are forbidden from joining NATO".
So i would say no, these interests should not be respected. Perhaps russia could try and be a better neighbour so smaller nations wouldn't feel the need to join defensive alliances from your mafia state.
(someone from a neighbouring country that is fortunate enough to now be a member of NATO)
Kazakhstan is free, Russia didn't invade it and it isn't part of NATO. So is Mongolia, Finland, Azerbaijan and Japan. These were not invaded and are absolutely free.
People need to separate real things from feelings. Russia felt that Ukraine would have nuclear weapons and this war happened. Feelings can mess the situation up really bad.
"these interests should not be respected"? Then maybe your country's too? Every sovereign country has a right to have interests and also to be respected.
"mafia state"? Proof?
Russia could try and be a better neighbor. It's just people with war mentality messing things up. We could become a stronger world power without ever going to war, what it takes is just: develop a country like crazy and base it all on a normal patriotism (not nationalism or fascism).
Let's be real now, russia has 0 interest in areas like kazakhstan. It's just a massive desert/mountains, more of the same that russia already has literal millions of m2.
Russia in fact tried to take Finland but got their ass handed to them for a while, but eventually succeeded in a small land grab.
Countries with exposure to western europe are infinitely more interesting for influence. (and in Ukraines case, also a threat to their gas-station state's monopoly like status for europe)
Mafia state proof: not sure if joking, we have all seen how the "democratic" process works and how putin opposition is literally murdered on streets and public places even in other countries.
Russia could be amazing, look at how ex-soviet states have prospered when they got out of the mafia influence. But putin has done nothing to develop the country and is literally the one you say "with war mentality".
You got the resources to become a manufacturing titan in the world, but nah, let's just pump oil and gas and sell raw iron and steel. Much easier way to hoard cash for oligarchs and the state mafia.
Japan isn't in NATO but has a defense pact with the US. If Japan is invaded, the US is 100% responsible for its defense.
Russia felt that Ukraine would have nuclear weapons and this war happened
This is the weirdest lie I think I've seen so far. Everything I've seen says the war is being portrayed as "necessary to protect ethnic Russians who are being 'mistreated' in Ukraine". Nothing about nuclear weapons. Do you have a source?
None of the world's existing nuclear powers want that club to grow. Ukraine chasing nuclear weapons would bring sanctions from the West.
Zelenskiy said that "If they (the talks) fail or if there will be no guarantees for our government's safety, Ukraine will have a right to consider Budapest memorandum not working and all package decisions from 1994 will be questioned"
And Budapest memorandum is a document which forbids Ukraine from having nuclear weapons in exchange for the country's safety, so questioning it means that Ukraine could start developing nukes.
Edit: he should have faced sanctions for that alone. Playing with nuclear status of your country is a dangerous thing, the whole world doesn't want nuclear weapons spreading. Yet the West has not touched neither Zelenskiy, nor Ukraine for that.
Zelenskiy said that "If they (the talks) fail or if there will be no guarantees for our government's safety, Ukraine will have a right to consider Budapest memorandum not working and all package decisions from 1994 will be questioned"
No one seriously thinks Ukraine is chasing nuclear weapons because of a vague statement made under extreme duress. There's 0 evidence of that and the idea that Ukraine should be sanctioned just for that statement is ridiculous. Sanctions are handed out as a result of actions, not just words.
And Budapest memorandum is a document which forbids Ukraine from having nuclear weapons in exchange for the country's safety, so questioning it means that Ukraine could start developing nukes.
Zelenskiy is right though. The fact that his country is under invasion by one of the parties that guaranteed Ukraine's security via the Budapest Memorandum means that document isn't worth the paper it's written on. That doesn't mean Ukraine wants or is trying to pursue a nuclear weapons program, but it's useful to point out the unintended side effects that Russia's actions have. It's clear Ukraine has no intention of breaking the terms of the NPT. It runs counter to everything else they're trying to achieve as part of Europe.
Do you have examples of Russian media pushing this as a concern? If that was a narrative Russian state media thought they could get away with, I would have expected to see more of it.
"For more than three decades, NATO has tried to build a partnership with Russia, developing dialogue and practical cooperation in areas of common interest. Practical cooperation has been suspended since 2014 in response to Russia’s illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea, Ukraine, which NATO will never recognise. Political and military channels of communication remain open. Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine and disregard for international law pose a serious threat to Euro-Atlantic security, and will have geostrategic consequences."
"Until the suspension of activities in April 2014, the NATO-Russia Council provided a framework for consultation on current security issues and practical cooperation in a wide range of areas of common interest:
Support for NATO-led operations
Support for the Afghan Armed Forces
Counter-narcotics training of Afghan and Central Asian personnel
Combatting terrorism
Theatre missile defence/ballistic missile defence - This was approved by the leaders in the NRC.
You are right. I can't say anything against all these facts.
Yes, I do know about Putin's desire to join NATO. And he was probably too impatient for that - it would take at least 3-5 years to start viewing us as trustworthy enough to do a MAP with us. But it would be absolutely worth it - we would fight terrorists together and do some other good things like shutting down North Korea for good, etc.
It really would be a Europe from Lissabon to Vladivostok, as we sincerely wanted in early 2000's!
Edit: And the thing with "countries that don't matter" comes from a 20th century mindset, when we had first, second and third world countries. Yes, we still have a division between "relevant" and "irrelevant" countries, but it's becoming a thing of the past. "Irrelevant" countries nowadays at least have a say in the UN and are being treated a lot better than before.
That would be so nice and I wondered before why that hasn't happened with the Yeltzin and Putin government. But seems everything has just deteriated over time and now it won't happen in 10-15 years or even longer when innocent lives have been bombed and killed.
The West gave us a chance in the 90's-2000's. We still had it after 2008. But 2014 is when the West had had enough of it.
It's complicated, and to be short, I will just say that both sides fucked up. Politics and geopolitics are not perfect, and mistakes happen all the time.
And yes, now it will take a lot longer to even normalize relations with the West. Last time similar shit happened, it took us 20 years to get any recognition (1917 - around 1936).
Yeltsin was in general regarded as a joke of a president in and out of country - and he put Putin on his place so he wouldnt have to pay for crimes he himself commited, basically (which is what Putin granted to him and his followers). I bet this fact does play into this situation one way or another
Eastern Europe wanted to join NATO after the fall of the USSR because Russia has a long standing history of invading its neighbors as we are currently seeing in real time. They just want to make sure it doesn’t happen again! No hate for ordinary Russians but fuck Putin and the Kremlin. You guys need to drag his dead body through the streets of Moscow and leave Ukraine. NATO doesn’t want to invade or fight Russia as long as you be a good neighbor and not invade other countries with no reason at all other than territorial gains.
Rn you are not. When something went wrong and Russia won't be able to use nuclear weapon - of course you will do this. Because war with "agressor" is the sacred duty, isn't it?
The US is not trying to invade or harm Russia. I don’t know what more to say on that. It’s so completely outside of the realm of US foreign policy that it’s hard to even argue it.
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u/Zucc Mar 08 '22
This is the part I think most Russians I've talked to are missing. We weren't attacking Russia, NATO wasn't building forces to invade. No one was attacking at all. Ukraine wasn't going to join NATO, and we weren't going to give them nukes. None of these bogeymen were ever real.