Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "What does the remote Svalbard archipelago have to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine? | DW News" video.

  1. ​ @aku345 The US isn't nearly as bad. Yes, they do meddle in your politics occasionally, but they generally respect other countries right to exist as sovereign nations. Even when they invade they don't try to annex land like Russia does...
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  2. ​ @MJ-cv5ye Yes and no. Norway isn't allowed to have any military on land on Svalbard. Norwegian interpretation of the treaty is that Norway is that the sea of the coast of Svalbard isn't managed by the treaty and is ruled like regular Norwegian waters, most other treaty signatories disagree there.
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  3.  @joninator7858  No, but there's a difference in degrees between what they do and our Russian neighbors do. Canada and Mexico doesn't have to fear annexation or war. They don't need allies to protect them from a Imperial neighbor like we had to enter as a neighbour of Russia. It's not like we want to be in a nuclear alliance. Russia really gave us no choice, and they've now proven themselves so unreliable that even Sweden and Finland has decided to join NATO. If Russia didn't exist or at least behaved then all the Nordics would have stayed neutral. We've always preferred to play the major powers against each other to maintain independence while trying to achieve our own goals here in our own corner of the continent. We're on the European peripheral and we know it. That used to be a quite comfortable location...
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  4. ​ @TomWaldgeist And thid I'd a German news channel after all. So it makes sense for them to mention that.
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  5.  @steffen6987  "Deutschland" is known to everyone and so is "Germany", Germans will know what you mean if you say "Germany" and people interacting with Germans generally know what a German means when they say "Deutschland". Svalbard/Spitsbergen however isn't as obvious a difference. Meaning that people need to be aware of the difference. It's definitely relevant and as someone living here in Norway I appreciate that they mentioned both names.
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