@z428

Thank you. I appreciate this conversation. It's clear it's not a topic we enjoy, but it's here and it helps to sharpen one's thoughts by brushing them against somebody else's.

> some of the aspects you voiced seem just the tip of the literal iceberg to me.

Of course! This is a history of humankind and the meaning of life we speak about. And I do not mean it as a joke. We both know there are libraries of books neither of us read in entirety written on exactly these topics.

> It seems to boil down to the question of who do you believe in this mess, which side actually gives a reason to believe in, these days

Very correct. But I think, I do see a way through this mess which I developed over the years, because this type of configuration happens a lot also on personal level to all of us - as far as we interact with others.

My take is this: There are two levels to the world around us: 1) what is said; and 2) what is done. I have these observations:
1. #1 is messy, full of contradictions, difficult to understand. #2 sometimes too, but much much less so.
2. #1 typically does not matter, while #2 almost always does (of course, there's more to day on the topic when when words cause change in reality, but I hope you get my point).

So my method is simple: mostly disregard what is said and look at what is done. That's how I can see clearer what is going on. Of course one might say that that how can you know what is being done? Well, if the actor publicly proclaims what others observe, I guess we can trust it, right? So that is how I filter information coming to me. And suddenly many things are less messy.

> From a pure pragmatic approach, my idea would be that _every_ external force should get the ____ out of that country (both including Russian forces in the East and any kind of military, strategic, financial support by US and NATO in the west)

I think this is the crux of the problem. Either we agree that societies and thus countries have a sovereign right to decide for themselves, or not. Given that, it's also easy to go and ask what do Ukrainians want. There seems to be plenty of evidence that they want to move towards EU style of managing their society and they actually want to receive all that support you mention (in that sense it's not far away from normal business transaction). Also, it's relatively clear they do not want to have their country torn apart or invaded, or somebody proclaiming an arbitrary state of their territory. It seems to me quite consistent what they say. How can we know Ukrainians actually want all this? Well, they held elections and voted for all this stuff, so in that sense there's little doubt, is there?

> would rather be to have something like, well, a "peace army"

We have that. It's called UN peacekeapers. And we also have a body helping us to resolve international conflicts. It's called United Nations. Today's general assembly meeting was for all to observe. Not a nice business.

> At the moment, it seems the idea of "they're the aggressor, we're just defending ourselves" also is a pattern of explanation all sides are pretty good at using.

That is right. And in a landscape where for me or you it's very hard to see through what actually is the truth and who is right and who is wrong, it's a mess.

Let me conclude on a very personal note: I picked my side very simply and in a harsh manner: as I said, words can be ignored, it's the actions which matter. And here, it's clear for me that actions of one of the parties are a direct assault on my own way of life, on the fundamentals of my world. How so? I come from a small country. A small country is always vulnerable to big strong bullies. In Europe, we are all small and medium sized countries. The only way we can get along is to rely on a system of rules. On a system where we can trust each other that even though we disagree on many things, some rules are sacrosanct. One of them is that borders of countries shall not be moved by aggression. We agreed on that after WWII and that is the fundament of what we call often "European security architecture". And here somebody not only breaks those rules, they also claim those rules are garbage and shall be disregarded just because their view on history (c.f., the very instructive speech by Mr. Putin two days ago). if that rule is gone, my country is in danger too. That's why it's not a theory, or semantics for me and why it's easy to pick sides even though I am not a direct party to the today's conflict.

I hope it makes sense.

@closeuprussia

@FailForward Thanks, too, for taking the time to state your thoughts, greatly appreciated too. Indeed, this is a topic I do not really appreciate and would be happy to able to avoid altogether, but it's pretty difficult at the moment. And, I know I am pretty much "privileged" too, living in Germany, both a relatively strong and a NATO country which, though not at the other end of the world, still is somewhat further from the current conflict lines.

So, easily, I very well get your arguments and your conclusions and I have nothing really valuable to add at this point. And I want to be perfectly clear on stating that I neither agree with nor support the recent Russian interference with Ukraina, or anything that happened after 2014.

But in some way (maybe this indeed needs more studies and diving more into details) I wonder whether, in a game of strong rules, you can come to a situation similar to a child that, being repeatedly harrassed and ignored on the playground, at some point resorts to violence to be heard or claim its rights. Looking at the political development after the Yeltsin era in Russia, I remember rather well Putins rhetorics and points of view becoming more and more gloomy and harsh. And I remember re-occurring issues that felt utterly concerning - like NATO coming to a conclusion of establishing a missile shield in Poland and Czech Republic in like 2008 or so, which back then also raised very strong opposition from the Russian side, as well as some maybe resonable questions (like "why, in days of still-existing 'Partnership For Peace', should NATO countries move missile protection that close to Russian borders?"). I have no clear idea on that, I'm just a computer scientist with a very bad gut feeling about that, but I wonder how many of really grave mistakes done by the West by now might be at least to some degree a cause for the fact that Russia has stepped over multiple red lines at once and broken with some rules that aren't supposed to be broken. Maybe, again, I am as well completely off here - I do also have some Russian contacts who are convinced that this kind of foreign policy exercised by Mr Putin at the moment has nothing at all to do with NATO or the US but serves the sole purpose of compensating for obvious internal weaknesses in Russia, striving to re-achieve the "greatness" of USSR in the late 1980s.

I don't know. I just hope it will not end all too bad. Not for Ukraina and also not for your country.



@closeuprussia

@z428
There were go. Everything is plain now. Words are over, actions speak. It's clear now who is the aggressor.

This is the most tragic day for all peace loving people on European continent. My heart is heavy today and one thing I know already now: it won't get better probably for years to come.

These are the true war criminals of Europe in 21st century just starting their ugly work. And the history won't be nice to them. Something important just happened what will have vast consequences for all Russians and Europeans alike for many many decades to come. I am full of grief today...

@closeuprussia

@FailForward
Same here.... 😔️ You and yours try to stay safe in these days...

@closeuprussia