Russia Ukraine war

Originally posted by moorookamick: ↑

If you for a moment can cast aside morality (good bad-right wrong)
and consider what Russia wanted up to 2014.

It did not want the Ukraine to join NATO because Russia saw
that as threatening Russia's national security (just the same as Aus would see
a PNG pact with China allowing China to base troops & weapons of mass destruction
based in southern PNG and aimed at Aus population centres )

Russia attacked Georgia in 2008 to prevent it from joining NATO and annexed
2 of its provinces which immediately disqualified Georgia from joining NATO
due to NATO's requirement that prospective members must have stable borders.

In 2014 when the then Russian friendly president of the Ukraine had to flee
to Russia, Russia then started to apply the "Georgian Solution" to the Ukraine
by initially annexing the Crimea and later invading SE Ukraine with the intention
of annexing the 4 now contested provinces. While the Ukraine claims these
Russian conquested provinces and the Crimea, it automatically disqualifies itself
from NATO membership.

This is why Russia's objective of preventing the Ukraine from joining NATO has
been successful so far and, IMO, the only way that the Ukraine will be accepted
into NATO without NATO changing its membership prerequisites is that the Ukraine
drives out Russia out of the Ukraine and reclaims its pre 2014 territory or that it agrees
to relinquish its territory that Russia has already conquested

This is not rocket science....just plain common sense given Russia's objectives
and NATO's membership prerequisites. Morality (good/bad/right/wrong) while
of concern to many on these threads does not feature prominently in modern Political Realism.

War is about power by force, not morality.

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I think you are making up "stable borders", on multiple sites the conditions are listed as follows:

1 New members must uphold democracy, which includes tolerating diversity.
2 New members must be in the midst of making progress toward a market economy.
3 The nations' military forces must be under firm, civilian control.
4 The nations must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.
5 The nations must be working toward compatibility with NATO forces.

It is a bit hard to join NATO when you are fighting off an invasion They also need to rid Ukraine of the corrupt Russian elements which this INVASION has brought to light. The Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom and point 1 - the rest will follow suit.

And Russia does not dictate who joins NATO, it is up to the elected officials of that country to apply. Finland joined NATO on the 4th April 2023 - now consider the direct distances from Finland to say St Petersbourg (~200 km), Moscow (~800km) - don't need a Masters degree to understand that this has always been a neo-imperial movement ................................