Comments by "Persona" (@ArawnOfAnnwn) on "What a Russian assault on Ukraine would look like" video.

@Ikabcda You could say the same for the west - anything put out by Russia, or for that matter China too, is immediately dismissed as propaganda and/or lies. While their own reports are taken as gospel truth. Don't like hearing it in turn?...
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@BadRussian77 It's hardly irrational. It's what you do when you can clearly see that inaction is merely a slow death. NATO will keep creeping closer anyway if Russia does nothing. Better to take a stand and try to set the new rules than to just let yourself be surrounded eventually. Shirvan recognizes that too - he pretty much says as much in the video. And really, this isn't even about NATO, but really America. Russia can threaten Europe so that keeps them in check. But apart from the nuclear option, they don't have any way to counter America. And America goes to war aplenty. That's what concerns them. When Russia put forces close to America, in Cuba, the Americans flipped out and have harshly punished poor Cuba ever since. If Russia had forces in Mexico and Canada, it might feel differently. But it doesn't. So it has to keep the Americans far away.
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Ukraine's military is irrelevant. Ukraine's population is not. What Russia doesn't want is what the US just finished being humiliated by - an insurgency. And the Taliban were a small share of the Afghan population. Ukraine would be most of the occupied population.
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@MrAlexkyra And yet the US DOES interfere with Latin American countries, and has a long and sordid history of doing so. Also, just cos those countries want to join NATO doesn't mean they can. It takes two to tango - NATO has to accept them. And NATO wasn't supposed to do that. The EU is one thing, but NATO represents America. And Russia will never allow America close to its borders. Cos they're not close to America's borders, creating a severe imbalance. When Russia did come close to America's borders in Cuba, the US flipped out. And has harshly punished poor Cuba ever since. If Russia had bases in Canada and Mexico, you might have more of an argument. It doesn't. And btw, the US shows no respect for sovereignty either - plenty of American interventions to testify to that fact.
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@Tsuchimursu The country that's been most allowed "to do militarised conflict, as in wage war, on sovereign territories" is the US. Russia is currently under sanctions. Where's the sanctions on America for the Iraq War? Or any of their dozens of others? And their wars have been much bigger too - far higher death tolls than Crimea or Georgia. Russia may get away with a lot, but nowhere near as much as the US does.
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@Pietervandebuurt Europe and the EU are largely irrelevant really. This is about America. Russia can threaten Europe just as Europe can threaten Russia, if they were strong enough. The same isn't true of America. The US, via NATO, has forces close to Russia. The reverse isn't true. When Russia did put forces close to the US, in Cuba, they US flipped out! And they've harshly punished poor Cuba ever since. Russia will not tolerate the US having more leverage over it. If they had forces in Canada and Mexico, it might be different. But they don't. As such, they will never let the US get any closer.
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@FLKRM Lol, this has nothing to do with Ukraine. This is about NATO and the US. Playing nice with Ukraine does nothing for Russia, because Ukraine isn't the issue. Here, I'll offer you a deal. Russia becomes friendly with Ukraine, and in exchange all NATO bases east of Poland are abandoned, and all US forces on the continent are pulled out. NATO does not expand anymore. Russia even signs a permanent non-aggression pact with Ukraine to seal the deal. You interested? ;)
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@FLKRM Oh right I forgot. Westerners find reasons to justify all the warmongering by simply calling their targets evil and imagining that makes it okay to invade sovereign nations whenever they want. This is especially ironic, since the west has crippled Iraqs' victim Iran as well simply for daring to dream of a nuclear deterrent (something they happily allow Israel to get away with). That's fine by you, since all that matters to you is that you get to justify your invasion of Iraq by whatever excuse you can find, even if you're an enemy of their victim too. All to make the west look good. Alright then, here's an entire list of countries for you. Have fun fishing out excuses for US interventions in all of them as well. Pretty sure some of them are even more innocent that Ukraine - Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Savador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iran, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Vietnam, etc. Have fun looking up all those interventions. You don't need to be brainwashed either - you can look them up even on Wikipedia. Face it, you've got your own history against you (and that's even without bringing up colonialism). And the world knows it. There was a Gallup (which it ironically a US polling agency) global survey a few years ago that asked people around the world who they thought was the greatest threat to world peace. It wasn't Russia. Or China. The winner by a landslide was the US. It wasn't even close lol! Second place was like a quarter of their score. That's how far detached you are from the worlds' opinions.
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That's just because you're grossly misinformed. The previous Russian war in Donbas has about 13,000 casualties. Meanwhile the US war in Afghanistan has around 300,000 casualties. But guess which one got the west more concerned. And the Iraq War toll is even higher. None of Russia's recent wars come anywhere close to the casualty figures of America's recent interventions. So in terms of wars of greatest magnitude, you should really be looking at where America's forces are, not Russia's.
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@Nazar_Melnyk China has been threatening Taiwan for over 70 years, and done nothing about it. On the contrary, they're Taiwan's largest trade partner, by far. They have very little to gain from capturing a bombed out wreck with a restive populace. But one thing they won't ever tolerate is having yet another American force close to their shores. Just see how the US reacted when Russia did that to them in Cuba - Cuba has been harshly punished ever since. That's why the current tensions in Taiwan started in 2017. Xi had been in power for over half a decade by then, nothing changed in China. What did change? The US. A certain orange gorilla won an election there and then went on a crusade. If there's a Taiwan war, it'll be cos the US pushed it too far. Just as this Russian conflict isn't about Ukraine, but NATO - or more specifically, America. Russia won't let them closer.
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@fgqgqlfqsfsffeff War doesn't disturb people in the west anywhere near as much as the people outside of it. Cos its remote - apart from the families of soldiers, it really IS something they only see on TV. Take America for instance - they haven't faced war on their home soil, threatening their own homes, for literally over 150 years! Which goes a long way to explaining why they're the country that's been to war more than any other in recent history. Even now, as they're supposedly retreating from the world, all they're really doing it pivoting to the Pacific theater. There's nothing cautious or nervous about that.
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Hernando Malinche America isn't tired of war lol! They're just switch from intervening in the Middle East to flexing in the Pacific. While Russia is pushing things in eastern Europe, America has been heightening tensions in East Asia since 2016.
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@FLKRM The same can be said for the rest of Europe. But here's the thing - Russia can hit back hard as well. Perhaps not as much against the UK, but certainly Germany is within their reach. The reason the US is key is because Russia can't hit back at them, except for with nukes, but they can hit it even with just conventional forces. There's some semblance of balance in Europe, there's no such thing for the US. Like I said, Russia would probably feel a lot more comforted if it had bases in Canada and Mexico to hit America, but it doesn't. And this has tangible effects. Consider this - the Russian invasion of Donbass resulted in about 13,000 or so casualties. It saw them being sanctioned as punishment. You may think those sanctions are too mild, but consider the US situation in comparison. The Afghan invasion has around 300,000 casualties and the Iraq War even more than that. Where's the sanctions on the US? The west just takes these discrepancies for granted, but outside the west people do note the double standards. Since American actions are evidently untouchable, Russia is never going to let them get close to it.
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@MrAlexkyra Ukraine is irrelevant. Russia doesn't care about Ukraine. Just look at its list of demands, barely anything about Ukraine. This was never about Ukraine, but about NATO. And frankly, it's not about NATO either, but really America.
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@JanBruunAndersen "Any decision by a dictatorship, like in Cuba, is by its nature illegitimate." - lol, this is so idealistically naive. The west has had plenty of dictator allies over the years little one, including today. Even Cuba was led by a dictator ally before Castro - Batista. Some of them have even been put in power by the west, such as in Chile. Others wage war with western blessings, such as Indonesia or now KSA. You think your govts. consider their actions illegitimate? Grow up kid. The real world doesn't operate by your idealistic rules. Btw, Castro cancelled a lot of the decisions that the previous dictator had made for US companies. That's what made the US so mad at him that they even went so far as to invade (something even China has yet to do to Taiwan in over 70 years now). But by your rules, those decisions weren't legitimate anyway, so why so mad? In fact the US had no business being there anyway even during Batista's time. After all, his decisions weren't legitimate. And I can extend this line of thinking to practically every relationship the west has with an autocratic regime, because your ruleset is, to put it frankly, hilariously naïve and impractical. Legitimacy isn't some holy status, it's a function of recognition. And the west is plenty experienced in hypocrisy and realpolitik to know the value of pragmatism. Dictatorships get legitimacy aplenty, provided it serves your interests to do so.
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