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0 pointsdrysine1mo ago0 comments

The issue at hand is that the US "mid-wifed" a nationalistic coup in the Ukraine in 2014.

The first thing the Ukrainian parliament did after the coup was passing the bill that repelled the law protecting the Russian language in the Ukraine. [1]

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine#Att...

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3 comments · 2 top-level

flextheruler1mo ago· 1 in thread

Ukrainian nationalism has spanned generations. The U.S. certainly helped, but it was not a contrived psychological operation to convince a majority of Ukrainians to revolt against their Russian dominated government.

When a nationalist movement has garnered support centuries ago from the Ottomans, Nazis, etc. it's a hard sell for me to believe it was not inevitable.

My understanding of Mearsheimer, the only person whose work I've seen, is that the U.S. dropped the ball and made the conflict an inevitable and deadly one which will end in a frozen conflict.

I believe he has argued the U.S. should have supported a Ukrainian nuclear weapons program or accepted its existence as a buffer state controlled by Russia.

drysineOP1mo ago

>to convince a majority of Ukrainians to revolt

Even if you accept the most charitable estimation of the number of people on Maidan in 2014, it's less than 2% of Ukrainian population. Hardly a majority.

>against their Russian dominated government

It is the government that the Ukrainian people democratically elected not a long time before the coup.

>it's a hard sell for me to believe it was not inevitable

The Ukraine was evenly split between pro-Russian South-East and pro-Western, well, West. The only chance they had for stability is respecting the democratic principles when people respect the authority of the president who won an election even if they voted for a different candidate.

The US supported the coup and broke that system. Despite famous Bush Sr.'s speech in Kiev in 1991[0] that warned of 'suicidal nationalism', the successive American administrations nurtured Ukrainian nationalism, supported and fed it.

>its existence as a buffer state controlled by Russia

Ukraine being neutral was enough for Russia, but not for the West.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkjxf76xRTw

tim3331mo ago

There are over 190 countries around the world provoking Russia by having their own nationality and not giving special privilege to Russia. I guess it'll just have to go killing and invading those people too as they are obviously nazis and a threat to Russia's security interests.

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