“We believe the prerequisite for meaningful diplomacy and real peace is a stronger Ukraine, capable of deterring and defending against any future aggression,” Blinken said in a speech in Finland, which recently became NATO’s newest member and shares a long border with Russia.

  • SolarSailer@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Interesting, I didn’t realize that Russia was already renting out the base pre-2014. Thank you for that context.

    • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It’s probably why Russia invaded Crimea in the first place. Otherwise it’s not all that useful.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Or you know it could be that Crimea is primarily populated by Russians and the regime the west installed after the coup was actively doing pogroms against Russian speaking people in Ukraine.

        • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          The timeline you’re proposing doesn’t even make sense. Yanukovych was out of power by February 22, 2014. Russia was laying the grounds for the annexation of Crimea at roughly the same time. The next day, protestors were in place in Crimea. In under a week, Russian special forces invaded. The central Ukrainian government was still trying to get its britches on. There was no time available to be “doing pograms”.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Russia had a deal with the existing democratically elected government in Ukraine to have a base in Crimea. Claiming this was laying groundwork for annexation is ridiculous because there was no reason for any sort of annexation if Ukraine stayed on friendly relations with Russia.

            Meanwhile, the pogroms were already happening before the regime took power. I’ve linked you the sources for this at least a dozen times. The fact that you continue to pretend none of this happened makes it pretty clear that facts don’t actually matter to you.

            • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              I hold no quarrel with their base in Crimea, as I have said numerous times on this post. The red line was sending special forces (“little green men”) to take over the government and later hold a sham election.