Russia has been pretty clear regarding what their demands were, and those demands haven’t changed now. They want Ukraine to be a neutral country. The fact of the matter is that NATO could’ve negotiated with Russia in good faith, but instead it chose not to. Now you’re dismissing the whole idea of diplomacy claiming that it’s not even worth considering.
Maybe, just maybe, diplomacy would have worked around 2017 when it would have been followed up with blocking weapon sales to Ukraine, but two weeks ago? You are delusional if you think that would have worked.
Do you even read what I write before you reply? I never claimed they changed.
Two weeks ago there were all the Russian troops in place and all the western weapons (and western trained Ukrainian troops) already inside Ukraine. No amount of pledging to block Ukraine from joining NATO on behalf of the current German government would have stopped this.
If you accept that the demands haven’t changed, then you understand that if these demands were met prior to the invasion then there wouldn’t be an invasion?
Once again, my point was that the west did not engage in diplomacy with Russia and did not make any attempts to address their concerns. If you don’t understand why it’s desirable to try and resolve problems before they escalate into an open conflict, I really don’t know what else to tell you. Painting Russia as being implacable and claiming that any negotiations would be pointless is a self fulfilling prophecy.
The German government did engage in diplomacy (a lot and several times), and also refused to export weapons to Ukraine until after the war broke out. So blaming this on the German government as the original article does is just plain wrong.
The German government did not engage in any meaningful diplomacy. At no point did any western nations take Russia’s concerns seriously or made any attempt to address them. Blaming German government for failing to do what it could to try and avert the war is absolutely correct position to take. In fact, any of the NATO member governments could’ve done this, but Germany was certainly in the best position to do so.
Russia has been pretty clear regarding what their demands were, and those demands haven’t changed now. They want Ukraine to be a neutral country. The fact of the matter is that NATO could’ve negotiated with Russia in good faith, but instead it chose not to. Now you’re dismissing the whole idea of diplomacy claiming that it’s not even worth considering.
Maybe, just maybe, diplomacy would have worked around 2017 when it would have been followed up with blocking weapon sales to Ukraine, but two weeks ago? You are delusional if you think that would have worked.
Russian demands haven’t changed from two weeks ago.
Do you even read what I write before you reply? I never claimed they changed.
Two weeks ago there were all the Russian troops in place and all the western weapons (and western trained Ukrainian troops) already inside Ukraine. No amount of pledging to block Ukraine from joining NATO on behalf of the current German government would have stopped this.
If you accept that the demands haven’t changed, then you understand that if these demands were met prior to the invasion then there wouldn’t be an invasion?
The demands include demilitarization of Ukraine. How would the German government be able to take away weapons from Ukraine that they already have?
Once again, my point was that the west did not engage in diplomacy with Russia and did not make any attempts to address their concerns. If you don’t understand why it’s desirable to try and resolve problems before they escalate into an open conflict, I really don’t know what else to tell you. Painting Russia as being implacable and claiming that any negotiations would be pointless is a self fulfilling prophecy.
The German government did engage in diplomacy (a lot and several times), and also refused to export weapons to Ukraine until after the war broke out. So blaming this on the German government as the original article does is just plain wrong.
The German government did not engage in any meaningful diplomacy. At no point did any western nations take Russia’s concerns seriously or made any attempt to address them. Blaming German government for failing to do what it could to try and avert the war is absolutely correct position to take. In fact, any of the NATO member governments could’ve done this, but Germany was certainly in the best position to do so.