I know no one here is part of the Russian government, so I’m not expecting concrete answers here.
What I’m asking is simply what will happen if [well, when, at this point] The Ukraine ends up…falling, per se?
That’s a question in of itself really. Will Ukraine fight until the AFU collapses? Will there be a coup? Would a pro russian or neutral ukraine be established across all of what is currently the Ukraine, or will there be an attempt to make a “taiwan-ified” state in the west?
Article 51 of the UN charter allows for collective self-defense. Russia invoked this article when they accepted the call for aid from the Donbass republics in 2022. The Donbass republics were clearly under attack by the Kiev regime. Also the right of the Donbass to declare independence (and Russia to recognize them, thus legalizing collective self-defense) is enshrined in the UN charter as the right of peoples to self-determination.
Russia used the exact same legal argument that NATO used to break off Kosovo from Serbia. The difference being that NATO was lying about Serbia committing genocide which invalidates their entire argument, and Russia wasn’t lying about Ukraine’s ethnic cleansing intentions in the Donbass, we have Ukrainian politicians, military leaders, and nationalist media figures on record admitting to this.
(Also there was never a referendum in Kosovo to legitimize their independence like there was in the Donbass; the self-appointed “government” there simply declared it and then ethnically cleansed the Serb population…but that is a story for another day.)
What would you suggest reading to learn more about the Serbian conflict for a nuanced understanding?
To start with, Michael Parenti’s “To Kill A Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia”. The NATO attack on Serbia is downstream of the deliberate destruction of Yugoslavia by the West.
Thank you
If I read Article 51 correctly, in this part: “[…] if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations […]” it could be argued that the Donbass republics were/are not members of the UN.
Or do i misunderstand something?
And right before that it says “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense”.
Articles 3 and 4 of the “Treaties of Friendship and Cooperation and Mutual Assistance” which Russia signed with the DPR and LPR, and which the State Duma ratified when it recognized their independence on February 22nd, enshrine a commitment to mutual defence. These are essentially articles which function as NATO’s commitment to treat an attack upon one member as an attack upon all.
Russia is a UN member and its right to collective self-defense applies. But UN member or not, states have the right to defend themselves and to ask for protection. Remember the “responsibility to protect” rhetoric that NATO used in Yugoslavia? Why would Russia not have that responsibility towards the people of the Donbass? The main point here, which the West always tries to obscure, is that the Donbass Republics were under attack and their people were facing an existential threat.
Thank you for the answer. I have regular discussions with a friend and he still has the opinion “russia bad”. In my country the media never gets tired to speak and write of the “russias illegal aggression war”. This exact wording is in every article and interview it’s obvious something is wrong.
It’s the same with “islamist terror organization Hamas” in every article, always the same words.
Yup. Whenever they keep repeating the same phrase over and over again, you know they are trying to turn a lie into “truth” by pure repetition.
The most obvious is when they speak about an “unprovoked full-scale invasion”. The reason they have to keep repeating that over and over again is because the reality is the exact opposite.
There has never been a conflict more provoked than this one, and even the West’s own strategy papers, those that are mainly meant for internal consumption, admit they were provoking Russia. It’s only the public facing mainstream media, that which is designed to brainwash the public and manufacture consent, which still pretends otherwise.
It is also extremely obvious that the qualifier “full-scale” is just meant to trigger an emotional response. It’s purely arbitrary. Objectively speaking it means nothing. Is Russia using its full force? No. If it was, Kiev would look like Gaza.
Is there such a thing as “just a little invasion”? Also no. Even though the West also likes to pretend that there is such a thing whenever they talk of “limited strikes” against the targets of their aggression, like when they bombed Syria, or when they recently bombed Iran.
And the most dystopian fact about all of this is how much literally all the media in the West are in lockstep on this. They literally all use the same language and the same phrases, almost as if there is a co-ordinated campaign (which there is) and the talking points are being fed by the state to all the outlets (which they are). No deviation from this line is tolerated.
This is what was known in Nazi Germany as “Gleichgeschaltete Medien”, media in total lockstep with the state.