How do you conclude that my view of the world comes from YouTube videos? If I am interested in a topic, I actually read the primary sources, and on the war in Ukraine I have done a fair bit of that in the beginning. In that respect I am easily better informed than 99 % of people that just consume the news in one way or another.
And there are essentially two points of view, either Russia has expansionist ambitions or Russia has legitimate security concerns not taken serious by the West. It is trivial to find someone that argues either position. And nuance does not matter here because we disagree on the absolute fundamentals, so it does not even matter whether I agree with every last word as long as I agree with the main points.
And am I neither Russian nor American nor do I feel close ties to any side, so I will happily change my position if someone provides the necessary evidence. But so far nobody has done so.
> If I am interested in a topic, I actually read the primary sources,
You're not referring to any primary sources here.
> In that respect I am easily better informed than 99 % of people
Bold claim, but even if true, doesn't mean that you can accurately assess the situation.
> there are essentially two points of view, either Russia has expansionist ambitions or Russia has legitimate security concerns not taken serious by the West.
The first is evidence based - Russia is expanding. The second has the convenient property that it backwards rationalizes Russia's violent actions, while not looking at the evidence. It requires mental gymnastics, and is therefore more popular with Russians who have an interest in believing it.
> nuance does not matter here because we disagree on the absolute fundamentals
Like what? Do you deny that Russia invaded Ukraine?
> am I neither Russian nor American nor do I feel close ties to any side
This is presenting the conflict as just two empires fighting over who gets the influence over the European countries, and completely ignores these countries' own agency.
The reason Ukraine wants to join NATO is because they're threatened by a neighbor who actively invades their territory, kills civilians, disrupts their economy ands terrorizes them. Not because they like Biden or want to be American.
Instead of discussing many different points, let us focus on one.
You're not referring to any primary sources here. [...] The first is evidence based - Russia is expanding. The second has the convenient property that it backwards rationalizes Russia's violent actions [...]
Give me a pre-invasion source that says that Russia has expansionist ambitions, bonus points if that claim is substantiated by evidence. I give you Putin's speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference [1] and the draft Agreement on measures to ensure the security of The Russian Federation and member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [2].
And just to be clear, I think that declaring that Russia has expansionist
ambitions is backwards rationalization, nobody claimed that before the invasion. Russia warning about the consequences of further NATO expansion, especially Ukraine, on the other hand has been stated countless times and for decades now.
You ignored the sources I gave you. I don’t think you will accept any source, given that you are willing to write down an invasion, terrorism and disregard for own human casualties to being afraid of a neighbor entering a defensive pact where the US is a member.
Imperialism is an element of Russian culture that runs for centuries. You can only question it if you don’t know Russia’s history, or are just arguing in bad faith.
The criteria you have for interpretation of these sources are asymmetrical for Russia and for Ukraine, and I suspect you might be simply trolling me, so I need to disengage.
You’re willing to frame a devastating invasion as protecting themselves from the US! And ignoring Ukraine’s desire to protect themselves by joining a defense alliance!
You can also ask any Russian what they think about Ukrainian statehood, but you’ll be determined to search for obvious declarations of expansion intent in their censored media in English.
Sorry for overlooking your sources, but if you have to respond to a handful of threads alone, mistakes will happen, the amount of time and attention I have available is limited.
"Tens of millions of our citizens and fellow-countrymen found themselves outside the Russian Federation."
There is nothing in the quoted sentence or the rest of the speech that implies expansionist tendencies, quite to the contrary I would say.
Meanwhile, the horrible lessons of the past continue dictating their imperatives to us today. Russia, with its ties to former Soviet republics, states that are independent today, ties of common destiny, ties through the Russian language and a great culture, cannot stand apart from the universal aspiration for freedom. Today, when independent states have formed and are developing in post-Soviet space, we want to aspire together to meet human values, to embrace broad opportunities for personal and collective success and to achieve standards of civilization gained through suffering. These are the standards that can give us a single economic, humanitarian and legal space.
And the Russia Matters article quite nicely illustrates the deteriorating relationships between Russia and the West. Initially, I think, Putin really [wanted to] believe that everyone will cooperate and follow international law, but over time he became disillusioned. There is this theme of the shared Russian history that Putin repeatedly talks about, but this is always balanced by statements about the rights to sovereignty. He mostly talks about cooperation between states with a common history but he never says that anything has to be incorporated into Russia. Which is a really stupid idea to begin with, just imagine the amount of resources it would take to force a country like Ukraine into Russia when the population is categorically opposed to this.
Besides that, this is not really what I was asking for, I was thinking of political or military analysts or even just the media stating that Putin wants to conquer its neighbors. We can of course now look over all the things Putin said and cherry pick those that could be interpreted this way. But where are the statements like »For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.«?
So for moving the goalpost, I just want something concrete, not vague statements where I have to read something into it. Either, like in the case of Trump, from Putin itself, or in case he never said something like this, I am also happy with some analyst saying before the invasion, we have looked at what Putin says and does and we think he wants to conquer some of his neighbors in the future. Because that is exactly the story the media tells since the invasion, now he wants to take over Ukraine and then he will go for the Baltic states. Quotes expressing that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation can mean all and nothing - you read into that your point of view, I see it as a harmless statement.
And there are essentially two points of view, either Russia has expansionist ambitions or Russia has legitimate security concerns not taken serious by the West. It is trivial to find someone that argues either position. And nuance does not matter here because we disagree on the absolute fundamentals, so it does not even matter whether I agree with every last word as long as I agree with the main points.
And am I neither Russian nor American nor do I feel close ties to any side, so I will happily change my position if someone provides the necessary evidence. But so far nobody has done so.