Why can’t Putin just be straight forward and say: “The reason we want Ukraine is because we don’t want the US and NATO to have a battery of nuclear missiles pointed towards us at our border?”
Because that’s not the reason the Russian citizenry supports it, which means it isn’t bullshit. Yeah, the Russian state is mostly interested in keeping NATO off its borders, but those Russian speakers in Ukraine usually have family in Russia too. They’re acutely aware that the neo-Nazis want to remove all the ethnic Russians from these regions, and at this point if Russia pulled out I think a majority of Ukraine would support them by expelling or executing anyone who was found “collaborating” with Russia.
Because that would still be a lie. NATO is already at 160km from Saint Petersburg. Russia share border with NATO already. Russia share border with the US already.
The real reason is that Putin wanted to immortalize his figure in Russian history by expanding the Russia empire like Peter the great.
Now is fighting because of sunk cost fallacy. He simply cannot stop.
Why can’t Putin just be straight forward and say: “The reason we want Ukraine is because we don’t want the US and NATO to have a battery of nuclear missiles pointed towards us at our border?”
There’s no need to sell a bullshit narrative.
Because that’s not the reason the Russian citizenry supports it, which means it isn’t bullshit. Yeah, the Russian state is mostly interested in keeping NATO off its borders, but those Russian speakers in Ukraine usually have family in Russia too. They’re acutely aware that the neo-Nazis want to remove all the ethnic Russians from these regions, and at this point if Russia pulled out I think a majority of Ukraine would support them by expelling or executing anyone who was found “collaborating” with Russia.
Because that would still be a lie. NATO is already at 160km from Saint Petersburg. Russia share border with NATO already. Russia share border with the US already.
The real reason is that Putin wanted to immortalize his figure in Russian history by expanding the Russia empire like Peter the great.
Now is fighting because of sunk cost fallacy. He simply cannot stop.