Comments by "Tx240" (@Texas240) on "ATACMS Destroy a Russian Training Ground" video.
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21:07 sadly, Ukraine tried the same thing, to join NATO because they knew one day Russia would be back. Ukraine was told, "someday" while the west was also, unofficially, telling Russia that Ukraine wouldn't be allowed into NATO as an appeasement to Russian fears of a European invasion of Russia.
Because of their history of being invaded, Russia has a built in paranoia even if it's unfounded in this age.
And, here we are today. The Ukrainians paying the price for the West trying to appease evil. And, STILL there is the appeasement mindset "don't want to upset Russia" (Biden with ATACMS, Scholz with Taurus). We learn slow.
Send Ukraine everything they need, and then some, so they can defeat Russia on the battlefield and the US and Europe don't have to risk our soldiers lives fighting inevitable Russian invasion of the Baltics should Russia prevail in Ukraine.
Get the war over with as quickly as possible saves the most lives, prevents the most destruction, and gets the world back to "normal" sooner.
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@figleaf8948 no problem. It's Russia that currently controls or occupies Crimea.
However, there is a similar principle in Ukraine controlled areas. I have a friend living closer than I'd like to the Zaporizhia area. When there was the fear that Russia was going to sabotage the nuclear power plant, I told her she needed to get away from that area and sent her bus ticket money. When she got to Lviv, near Poland, she said it looked more like Poland than the Ukraine she was used to. I asked for pictures. She explained that she'd try but it wasn't a good idea to take pictures because people become suspicious that she's a spotter relaying target information back to Russia.
You might recall that there was a pizza restaurant that Russia hit with 2 missiles. It was frequented by Ukrainian military officers and their families.
Whether anyone actually is sending pictures of this or that restaurant or apartment building or if Russia is flinging darts randomly at map, I can't say. However, the Russian missile and drone terror attacks are very real and really stressful since the Shaheed drones are loud and can be heard flying around and the distant booms from missile and drone explosions make sleep difficult (according to my friend who's back in her city closer to the front).
So, while Ukraine doesn't mind images of the aftermath getting out so the world can see what Russia is doing, people are wary of anyone taking pictures because of the concern, real or imagined, that it's a Russian spotter and the stress from living with it for 2 years.
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@damarcusowens5511 Hi, thanks for the question. First, I'd like to point out that saying, "Ukraine should've taken their defense seriously," is like saying "Mexico should've taken their defense seriously," if the United States were to invade Mexico.
Mexico simply doesn't have the resources to fund the buildup and maintenance of a military force great enough to prevent the US from invading.
You're seriously trying to argue that since Ukraine couldn't defend themselves from a much larger neighbor (Russia is the largest country in the world) with a much larger military without foreign assistance that Russia should be able to take over Ukraine.
Hitler could've used more people like you on his side. Maybe you could've convinced the Americans that since Britain (indeed all of Europe) wasn't taking their defense seriously that Germany should've been able to assimilate the entire world, eventually.
Secondly, Ukraine is literally (Ukraine being derived from the Polish word for frontier or borderland) the frontier between Europe and Russia.
Russia has begun an invasion of Europe. Putin never intended to stop at Ukraine. Putin's motivation to invade Ukraine began back at least as far as 2003 when he told Bush not to invade Iraq looking for imaginary WMD and Bush promptly brushed Putin's concerns aside and invaded Iraq. Putin sees the fall of the Soviet Union as the greatest tragedy of the 21st century.
The fact that Western nations no longer needed to heed the word of a Russian Czar, as they did in the Soviet era, set Putin on a course to "Make Russia Great Again" by rebuilding the Russian Empire.
The reason sending aid to Ukraine, in sufficient type and quantity, is preventing WWIII is because it tells Putin that the West won't stand back and let him forcibly rebuild the Russian Empire by invading and subjugating nations that he feels are part of the Russian sphere of influence or that he feels are "rightfully part of Russia".
Yes, Putin could absolutely send Russian forces into Estonia tomorrow. In fact, I'd argue that this is actually more likely than people would like to recognize.
Because Europe is only half heartedly helping Ukraine and the US (leading global exporter of Freedom and Democracy) took 7 months off, Putin views this much as he viewed the almost non response to the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, as a green light to continue.
Not helping Ukraine sufficiently to defeat Russia on the battlefield or make keeping Russian forces in Ukraine untenable is telling Putin that Europe and NATO won't actually fight Russia for the little actually-Russian (in Putin's mind) countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. That encourages him to think about conquering these countries (after or in addition to Ukraine) in order to gain their resources and population to forcibly add to the Russian war machine before advancing on Poland, Finland, Sweden, and even parts of Germany.
So, just sending aid to Ukraine isn't preventing anything. You're right about that. Sending ENOUGH aid of the right types to Ukraine to make staying in Ukraine untenable for Russia is what will prevent Russia, Putin specifically from trying to invade the Baltics (which are now NATO members).
With the current half hearted assistance to Ukraine, a Russian invasion of Estonia would be a amazing distraction for the West from Ukraine. That would be a huge benefit to Russia in its conquest of Ukraine even if every Russian that went to Estonia was eventually un-alived and the Russian invasion of Estonia eventually thwarted.
Not being able to succeed at such a thing hadn't stopped Russia from trying (1 unsuccessful invasion followed by 1 semi successful invasion of Georgia and 1 semi successful invasion of Ukraine followed by the currently stymied 2nd invasion of Ukraine).
Basically, stopping Russia in Ukraine with significant enough Western support will send the message to Russia that "No, you can't invade your neighbors" and it will also decimate Russia's capacity for a conventional war.
Even the current half hearted assistance to Ukraine combined with sanctions on Russian individuals and the Ukrainian strategic bombing campaign of Russian oil refining and fuels production is beginning to push Russia past the tipping point of the elite becoming fed up with Putin and wanting to do something about it before a window finds them.
The recent arrest of Defense Minister Shoigu's assistant Defense Minister is showing this infighting of the various factions had shifted from them fighting over the scraps Putin gives them to fighting over who will shape post-Putin Russia (and therefore who will be in the best position to benefit financially).
Shoigu is in charge of the military not because he's proficient. Rather he's Defense Minister because Putin views him as completely loyal. A dictator's greatest fear is the military, via a military coup, and having a loyal man at the top of it is essential.
The fact that Shoigu's right hand man was made vulnerable to punishment for his corruption is actually a shot at Shoigu which, even though Putin ordered the arrest is actually an attack on Putin by the people who made the corruption public in a way that couldn't be ignored.
So, this may have been a bit more than you were asking for, but if your question was genuine or another person might genuinely have the same question, hopefully this has given some perspective.
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