There's a massive wall of article 5. Ukraine in NATO was a red line. We tested the waters, the Ukrainians paid for it. It's easy to fuck around and find out when it's not your children who get sent to the frontlines. All because Shell got scammed into investing in shale reserves that never existed. Lol, now we're left holding the bag, the Ucranians have lost an entire generation of young men and the US is now the 4th reich. I'm more worried about jingoism from the yanks than Russia doing anything. They could barely penetrate a Ukraine with its pants down. (pun not intended)

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh I didn't mean to imply Russia is going to do anything - I mean Europe doesn't have the capabilities to fight a proxy war in Ukraine. If the US is dropping out then the war is over, there was never anything else keeping the war going.

[–] Viri4thus@feddit.org 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes, pretty much. However, Europe did try as much as it could to avoid the war. Macron and Scholz were pinponging to Moscow to stop the war. Meanwhile genocide Joe and BoJo in the back room boycotted any attempts at a peaceful resolution.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 weeks ago

Previous governments of both France and Germany admitted the Minsk agreement was a ruse to arm Ukraine more - that's in case if anyone wonder why Russia is a bit reluctant to believe them now.

[–] MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

They could barely penetrate a Ukraine with its pants down

The rest of your comment is spot-on, but this isn't a good assessment of the Russian invasion. They're very clearly fighting a limited war (i.e., they don't want to occupy the whole of Ukraine, they just don't want a U.S. puppet and NATO member as a neighbor) and it's possible-to-likely that their initial sprint to Kyiv was only withdrawn due to the early peace talks that the UK and US scuttled.