> Russia's paranoia about the west is really strong, well founded and well documented.
It's an act, and everyone in Russia knows that it's an act. Acting this way gets the dumber kind of Western politicians to carefully tiptoe around Russia; that is the value this act provides.
There are many western authoritative sources documenting that.
Have a look at William Burn's 'Nyet means nyet' depeshe.
Or Merkel's memoirs.
Or George Kennan's statement's in the 90's on the wisdom of expanding NATO.
But, ultimately, one believes what he/she wants to believe....
Do you think it is better to not carefully tiptoe around Russia? Do you consider full-on sanctions, total refusal (except Trump) to diplomatically engage them, open intelligence, military and financial support of Ukraine 'carefully tiptoing'?What do you propose instead? Open WW3? I am really curious.
You listed joke sources. Merkel, in particular, has been utterly discredited for her naivety toward Russia. Her sucking on Russian gas left Germany lagging in the transition to renewables and EVs, and the German economy is now paying a double price by also having to bear a part of the economic burden of the war.
As to Russia, virtually no-one in Russian academic foreign policy circles, nor in the influential semi-formal circles of imperialists and neo-nazis, nor anywhere inbetween, is paranoid about the US, NATO and the West in general. What is there to be paranoid about? They see the West in general as utterly impotent, making big words, but not backing it up with a stick. This week one year ago, Trump wrote "Vladimir, STOP!" in response to a massive air attack on Kyiv. Putin didn't, and what followed? A bunch of nothing.
The answer to your question about tiptoeing is abundantly clear to anyone familiar enough with Russian culture to know what zek and kagebeshnik mean and how to deal with them. Politely asking them to stop has never worked. The idea that you have to talk with people in the language they understand is hardly a novel one.
Sigh, joke sources. Burns and Kennan also, right? Anybody who actually understood Russians is a joke. Study a bit, and not only neocon think tank sources, but from the people who actually understood Russians (there are practically none left in recent administrations).
Russians are paranoid, among other things, about nuclear decapitation strikes. For the same reasons, they have repeatedly explicitly strongly opposed missile sites in Poland and Romania.
I am really curious, what do you think the west should have done? Bomb Russians directly? I mean, what else is left?
They don't "actually understand Russians" and I don't need to study them to see through it. I was born in the USSR. Lived experience makes most foreign "Russia experts" look like the nerds who are very into Japanese or Korean culture and have memorized a bit of superficial trivia, but don't actually know at all how the society functions and are completely helpless at navigating it.
For example, Kennan warned in 1997 that accepting Eastern European countries into NATO would trigger a pivot toward authoritarianism in Russia. The pivot was well underway by that time. The breaking point was the genocidal war against Chechens that Russia launched in late 1994. Internally, it eroded the positions of the reformists and liberals who were seen as weak, and contributed to the rise of the alliance between crony oligarchs and KGB old-timers to undermine democracy and market reforms and restore state-controlled monopolies as their personal piggy banks. Exernally, the Chechen war proved to Russia's neighbors that Russia was no different from the USSR and that transgressions into their countries were only a matter of time. This made them run toward NATO was fast as they could. And personally, Putin, who had started out as an enforcer to St Petersburg's major, was already on his meteoric rise and had broken through to Moscow and joined the presidential administration by 1996.
For reasons that still elude me, western "Russia experts" prefer to believe noble-savage type myths like "NATO paranoia" and not treat Russians as capable people who have their own agenda. It's almost comical how they refuse to listen to what Russians are discussing among themselves, and that applies especially to your question about what should've been done:
> I am really curious, what do you think the west should have done? Bomb Russians directly? I mean, what else is left?
Yes. That's what Igor Girkin, the commander of the 2014 invasion force, has said. First, that he and his commandos who attacked the city of Slovyansk are directly responsible for igniting the war. Second, that if NATO had intervened in support of Ukraine and bombed them like the Serbian forces in Yugoslavia, they would have lost and that would have been the end of it.
The second opportunity was on the eve of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Had forces like the 82nd and 101st Airborne been deployed to likely attack paths such as Hostomel airport, the invasion would have been called off out of fear of direct confrontation with the US. Instead, Biden acted like a chicken and publicly promised "No boots on the ground," which Russians took as a green light to go ahead.
The third major opportunity was during the 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive, when Ukraine made a major breakthrough and Russian forces became so disorganized that they collapsed without a combat in many sections of the frontline. Instead of supporting the counteroffensive with everything they've got, NATO members got spooked by Russian nuclear blackmail and tried to micromanage Ukraine's combat operations. The counteroffensive stalled and Russian forces dug in. The war is now going as most wars do once entrenched positions are established: heavy casualties and minimal territorial changes.
The policy of tiptoeing around Russia has not yielded results because of a fundamental misunderstanding of Russia among western "Russia experts." They interpret fake acts such as "NATO paranoia" as genuine fear, in which case it makes sense to issue reassuring statements (like Biden's). But the fear is not genuine; it is simply a way for Russians to probe how far they can go. Overstating fears to extort concessions is such a basic manipulation technique that I cannot understand how "Russia experts" fail to recognize it. It's a strange plague upon the field. Military experts, by comparison, have been much more reasonable in their assessments and recommendations. The current mainstream recommendation is to stop wasting expensive air defense missiles on shooting down each arrow that Russia fires into Ukraine, and blow up the launchers in Russia instead. The fear of striking Russian launchers that fire at major European cities every night is indefensibly absurd.
First, thank you for taking your time to write a proper response.
Second, I must respectfully disagree.
The reformist/liberals lost it by mismanaging the transition in the 90's. And the society at large was not ready anyway.
And it was not about the turn toward authoritarianism, but a turn towards anti-west as such; those are not the same.
I totally agree that Russians are capable and have their own agenda, no noble savages there. NATO paranoia is not noble-savages, it is, at its roots, historically well-founded self-preservation instinct.
Btw, your choices of wording in several places (Putin is 'enforcer', 'Girkin's invasion force (of, initially, maybe 60 men)', Chechen 'genocide', Russian's 'full scale invasion' (maybe 1/4 manpower of what USA used in Iraq) is rather strange and reeking of just a little bias (are you, perchance, from Ukraine?).
Regarding 'what the west should have done':
In 2014:
a) do you sincerely believe that Russia would have let NATO bomb Donbas like Serbia?
b) that would have been a very sharp escalation from what was, at that time, not yet as bloody conflict. Such an action would have required a long logistical and planning preparation and great political will for such an costly and risky action; there was simply nobody in the west politically ready for that. The consent was not manufactured yet. It was simply political impossibility, not a realistic course of action that could have been taken.
c) what about Crimea? should had the west bombed the Russians there, going to direct war with them?
d) 'they would have lost and would have been the end of it': full-on wishful thinking
Before the invasion of 2022: One of the reasons why Russia attacked in february 2022 (and not some other time) was the apparent preparation of a major Ukrainian offensive to retake Donbas. Believing that a show of force by NATO would have not elicited a response is supremely naive. It is on the same level as 'we will push NATO eastward, and Russia won't be able to do anything about that' (The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski). Eventually, the real red line war crossed and the war ensued. Anyway, there was no political will to preemptively escalate; furthermore it would have broken the narrative of 'unprovoked aggression by Russia'.
Fall 2022 during Kharkiv offensive: That offensive achieved great results, mainly due to major local force superiority (the Russians refrained from conscription and major recruitment, and sent home plenty of soldiers whose half-year duty expired). Expecting the Russians to totally collapse everywhere was about as realistic, as expecting the Ukrainians to totally collapse in February/March. The west was applying the salami slice strategy, incrementally increasing the support of Ukraine (they basically scoured the whole Earth of USSR equipment and sent it to Urkaine). Maybe, they could have sent some western equipment (that was subsequently sent in 2023), but it is unclear how much difference that would have made. Or you mean actively employing NATO airforce/groundpower?
Military experts (Mike Milley) have said in the fall 2022 that this is a high water mark for Ukraine, and they should negotiate now. He was piled-upon; with a hindsight, he was right.
I do not understand: The fear of striking Russian launchers that fire at major European cities every night is indefensibly absurd.
You are advocating for NATO to strike at Russian launchers firing at Ukrainian cities? Because the Ukrainian are doing that, as much as they can.
You know, the main reason I believe the Russia's attack was due to national security reasons and not due to 'imperialistic expansion of territory/capturing natural resources' is simply that there is no economic payoff in the latter. The cost of the war and the inevitable economic sanctions is simply punishingly high. On the other hand, people/countries are willing to suffer greatly in order to ensure their (perceived) security.
To sum up: What you consider 'realistic options that west should have taken', I see as 'highly escalatory and very risky actions that were politically unfeasible'. From the point of view of Ukraine very desirable, from the west's point of view too risky. Simply because Ukraine does not matter to the West sufficiently for the West to be willing to risk their own citizens.
Questions like this show the incredible disconnect between HN and the widely deployed tech that the world depends on. The use case for Windows Server is running a centrally managed office: from operating your own certificate authority and deploying PC images, to managing resources like virtual desktops, print and file servers, all the way down to individual browser settings and even the ordering of items in the Start menu.
You can recreate Windows Server on other platforms by stringing together bits and pieces, but there is nothing that comes even close in terms of integration and how everything works together. Nothing.
4. Farmers are already facing great difficulties from economic shocks like Brexit, Covid, Ukraine and Hormuz in a short span of time, and further strain is unwelcome.
Eagles are also dealing with other stuff (arguably more significant-- e.g. habitat loss), but that's an irrelevance to this issue.
The potential predations of a small number of eagles nationally will make very little difference to the enormous number of sheep kept by a large number of farmers. They can handle the strain, and if it's really somehow too much, there are mitigations short of extinction available to them.
Russia's intentions for Ukraine were not limited to only destruction of statehood and identity, but included the physical extermination of Ukrainians too; at least to such extent that Ukrainians would not be able to self-govern anymore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Russia_Should_Do_with_Ukr...
This closely mirrors the actions of Russians in the 1940s against a number of countries in Eastern Europe. Exterminate doctors-lawyers-merchants to destroy natural leaders, and then exploit the working class people as slaves to the immigrant class of Russian masters. This is the blueprint of how Russia has grown from a small city-state to span 11 timezones. The parent poster mentioned banality several times. It's utterly banal to believe that you can smooth talk your way out of this.
As much as the poster criticizes Western attitudes, they end up reproducing one of the most characteristic ones: the belief that every conflict can be managed through negotiation and that there is always some mutually acceptable deal to be made. This reflects the Anglo-American bubble and bias toward materialism, which leads to serious misjudgements when applied to situations where motivations other than economic.
If you are using Wikipedia as a source to determine "what Russia wants", instead of Russian sources, then whose propaganda are you truly propagating?
Which is to say, your "What Russia Should Do with Ukraine" is just a projection of the, indeed very materialist, "Project for a New American Century" - so shall we castigate all Americans for callously allowing such totalitarian schemes to have been committed, in their names?
Your agitation against Russia is the kind of smooth talking that gets people into conflict, not out.
Regardless, let us not ignore the statistics for "# of states considered inferior by ones own states' ruling elite and thus qualified for destruction and then actually destroyed", per-state, shall we .. the OP is right to point out the sheer magnitude of crimes when comparing Russia vs. Western-5-eyes states...
Perhaps you use Wikipedia as a source for your information, but there are still a lot of people alive, like myself, from all the countries that are or have been neighbors of Russia, who know from first-hand experience how the Russians have treated all the territories that they have invaded, by killing the natives, deporting them to Siberia (where those deported were chosen for having "dangerous" professions, like school teacher or any other "intelectual"), installing Russian colonists in their former houses, stealing everything from the leftovers and then attempting to brainwash their children by teaching them that everything useful in the world has been invented by Russians and that the Russians are their "liberators", to whom they must be eternally grateful.
I would like to see which would be your opinion about Russians if you had the luck to live in a place close to them, so you would have seen your family kidnapped and sent to forced work in Siberia and everything they owned stolen from you.
This is something that the Russians have done everywhere around them, whenever they could, and it was always done unprovoked, before any of those neighbors had done anything against them. When those attacked by Russia during WWII have fought back, after Russia was among the victors, with the help of USA and UK Russia has extracted huge "war reparations" from those who have fought against the Russian aggression, besides transforming all the Eastern European countries into vassal states.
The traditional joke about Russia was: "Who are the neighbors of Russia? ... Whoever Russia wants."
So there is no wonder that anyone whose memories are intact will do anything to prevent the Russians from repeating such actions.
> If you are using Wikipedia as a source to determine "what Russia wants", instead of Russian sources, then whose propaganda are you truly propagating?
Wikipedia says:
> What Russia Should Do with Ukraine" (Russian: Что Россия должна сделать с Украиной, romanized: Chto Rossiya dolzhna sdelat s Ukrainoy),[a][1] is an article written by Timofey Sergeytsev and published by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.[2] The article calls for the full destruction of Ukraine as a state, as well as the full destruction of the Ukrainian national identity in accordance with Russia's aim to accomplish the "denazification" of the latter.
Sounds like Wikipedia describing an Russian source. I can't read Russian, can you? Is the description of the source inacurate? Is the summary inacurate?
mopsi provided a link to data. Please at least look at it before making unsubstantiated statements. It clearly shows that the US has not contributed since the beginning of 2025, let alone 'bankrolled' it.
Only if you accept the hidden assumption that Russia is an antagonist toward the rest of Europe. Otherwise the common "national security" justifications make no sense, because Russia benefits immensely from other NATO members investing resources into the development of institutions in newer member states.
A former Russian foreign minister has labeled NATO "free-of-charge security" for Russia, because NATO membership requirements turn a country into a stable and predictable place. The best neighbors Russia has are in NATO, and much of that stability is directly attributable to their membership.
> I gave you a link to the video where former American ambassador to the USSR is saying "though it was not a legally binding assurance, we gave categorical assurances to Gorbachev, back when the Soviet Union existed, that if a United Germany was able to stay in NATO, NATO would not be moved eastward".
Eduard Shevardnadze, the USSR's minister of foreign affairs at the time, clarified that the context was the potential stationing of foreign NATO troops (US, UK, etc) in East Germany after reunification. There was nowhere further "east" to move at the time, since East Germany bordered the Warsaw Pact. German reunification was agreed upon with the understanding that foreign troops would not be moved directly to the border with the Warsaw Pact, because the Pact had not yet had time to establish military infrastructure after retreating from East Germany. That was the agreement and parties adhered to it.
Shevardnadze also said that in 1990, it was unimaginable to the Soviet leadership that the Warsaw Pact and the USSR itself would dissolve. Therefore, there was no reason to discuss potential NATO membership of countries and territories that were under Soviet control at the time. And according to him, this was indeed not discussed at all during his tenure (1985-1991); not internally, and not with foreign partners either.
The putinesque sob story that NATO promised never to accept any new members is an anachronistic perversion of these events.
He didn't. Talks about NATO's future were limited to East Germany alone and written down into the articles 4 and 5 of the so-called "4+2 treaty" from 1990, which settled the post-reunification status of East Germany. In the treaty, it was agreed that foreign NATO forces would not enter East Germany before Soviet forces had withdrawn (by 1994).
It's absurd to even suggest anything beyond that, because post-reunification Germany was to border the Warsaw Pact. Even theoretically, there was nowhere for NATO to "expand." Gorbachev's team did not foresee the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact the following year.
To put this into perspective, the US provided Ukraine with $64.62bn of military aid and $50.72bn of humanitarian and financial support in the four years between January 2022 and December 2025.
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