The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

[Aleks.ov]

If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that Kyiv’s response to Ukraine’s internal divisions made peaceful dialogue impossible and left Russia no choice but to intervene.

Even if I were to accept your account of divisions and repression within Ukraine, you haven’t established why Russian military intervention was inevitable. Russia having an interest in the outcome doesn’t mean it had no alternative to invade.

There is also the chronology: Russia had already militarily intervened in Ukraine before both the April poll and the Odesa fire in May. Odesa cannot explain why that intervention began.

The trigger for the intervention was the violent overthrow of power and the geopolitical turn of Ukraine; Russia had no soft power tools left to keep Ukraine in a neutral status.
The USA and Europe for decades ignored Russia's concerns and security problems, remember the Munich speech of President Putin in 2007.
The Odesa tragedy is not a cause, but a clear example of the fact that no one was going to conduct a dialogue with the South-East, and that they would kill for dissent.

 

[personaldesas]

The trigger for the intervention was the violent overthrow of power and the geopolitical turn of Ukraine; Russia had no soft power tools left to keep Ukraine in a neutral status.
The USA and Europe for decades ignored Russia's concerns and security problems, remember the Munich speech of President Putin in 2007.
The Odesa tragedy is not a cause, but a clear example of the fact that no one was going to conduct a dialogue with the South-East, and that they would kill for dissent.

Understood on Odesa: you're now citing it as an illustration, not the trigger. Previously, you included it in your explanation of what "forced Russia to intervene."

But losing influence over Ukraine doesn't mean Russia was forced to invade. You're assuming Russia had no choice but to impose its will on Ukrainians with force. What concrete threat made that necessary, and why was invasion the only viable option? Putin expressing concerns in Munich doesn't show that other options had been exhausted.

Separately, how do you think this has worked out for Russia? Have the results so far been worth the costs, or could Russia have achieved more by putting that effort and those resources elsewhere?