> This means that Russia can't sell at full price because even those not enforcing the cap aren't willing to pay full price for it (why should they, when Russia's choices of customers are severely limited?)
Yeah, as if energy sources are fashion material and are being bought out of pure fun and leisure. Because countries can just allow themselves not to rely on energy.
Demonstrate exactly how it's ad hominem. I couldn't care less about you in the first place. You haven't refuted anything I said neither regarding the whataboutism, nor any other point I made regarding the conflict, so please do elaborate how exactly my points about your whining of whataboutism is ad hominem?
> you could discuss the merits of Ukraine on its own but instead you had to try to obfuscate and distract by expanding to Yugoslavia.
Why would I discuss the merits of Ukraine on its own if your argument is wholly based on the idea of morailty and ethics of actions (the ones you call disgraceful, unjustified and indefensible) that are supposed to be applied equally to everyone? I want to see how you apply it universally across the board, and until that happens I call you a person with an agenda to propagandise.
But let's entertain the idea, let's see how you cover "the merits of Ukraine on its own". What's happening on this video and who's receiving the medals? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwpBvJziSs&t=365s
> You realize that 2006 is both before the 2008 denial of the MAP and before the 2014 Maidan Revolution, right?
Do you realize that in other thread you complain that certain events regarding NATO have happened after 2014? And in this thread you complain that certain events regarding NATO have happened before 2014?
> Yup - they're literally saying that the fact of a tiny fringe group that managed to get involved with the Muj in Chechnya -- is equivalent to saying that Ukraine as a whole (or its government, whatever) supported those folks.
Yup - they're literally saying that the fact of a tiny fringe group that managed to get involved with Crimea and Donbass in 2014 -- is equivalent to saying that Russia as a whole (or its government, whatever) supported those folks.
Yup - they're literally saying that the fact of a tiny fringe group that managed to get involved with the terrorists in Baghdad/Kabul -- is equivalent to saying that Iraq/Afghanistan as a whole (or its government, whatever) supported those folks.
In other words, the person registered "77 days ago" loses their entire awareness of role reversal in an attempt to fit reality into their botched worldview. It would be nice to hear, at least, what Ukraine did do to prosecute the so called fringe group that was threatening foreign relations of the entire state, but that would be too much for you to answer. Especially in the light of knowing that UNA-UNSO got integrated into the governing body of the country [1]. Let me guess: "they are still the minority". Great coping nonetheless.
The thing that you call "whataboutery" is the basis of the Socratic method that every student who attended Philosophy 101 understands as an essential form of argument-building. Unfortunately to you, the whining of "whataboutery" that you've just demonstrated cannot serve as a rebuttal of anything but your aptitude for argument elaboration.
> 2003 was before 2008 [...] it didn’t see pursuing NATO as a fruitful course. It took the war to change their mind. The war created the intent, it didn’t react to it.
You're hilarious, on the one hand you don't like it when there's evidence of the subsequent alignment with the goal of joining NATO (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36034020), on the other hand you don't like the evidence of the prior alignment either. I'm not sure what you argumnt is unless it's "we decide at the spur of the moment and no one can hold us accountable for anything neither in the past nor in the future".
> So if a country disagrees with the political situation of a neighbour
I see how nicely you downplay the armed coup and the ethnic discrimination against former citizens of one of the sides (who voted to remain a single country in the past [1]) into a mere "political situation of a neighbour". However, that same argument wouldn't work for you on this same forum if you dared to suggest that NATO's "intervening into the political situation of Yugoslavia" wasn't OK.
Yeah, I've already heard that you don't believe in succesion of power in Ukraine and that it enables everyone in the government to act at a whim of the moment as long as it serves the current agenda. Turns out that strategy doesn't work in real life.
In other words you sound like an offended Ukrainian who got registered "77 days ago" and who had constantly been denying everything that didn't fit your agenda, including the political stance of your government prior 2014.
> Once it was at war with Russia, Ukraine changed its mind again and decided it needed to pursue NATO membership as a goal, for some reason.
Your timeline is missing a few important points, let's start with the fact that it never stopped pursuing it since 2003, when it had taken part in the invasion of Iraq with their 5th and 6th mechanized brigades [1][2].
> Ah it’s Ukrainian leaders fault that they were invaded and had their territory annexed?
Let me remind you what happened in 2014. The Ukrainian leaders of the successful armed coup did pass a bill to prohibit official use of minority languages on the eastern part of the country (dominated by Russian-speaking population) on a Sunday morning of February 23, 2014. It happened a day after their legitimately elected president (recognised by OSCE and PACE) had to flee the country. It was clearly a period of political crisis and no one was supposed to work and enact any legislation on that weekend day in the first place. No one was supposed to pass a bill of that significance without extended debates and a referendum specifically. But the coup leaders decided to move forward with it nonetheless. Russian troops legally stationed in Crimea took over the peninsula 4 days after that punitive act of the Ukraine government against its own russian-speaking population of the eastern part of the country. The reinforcement from Russia were only sent 6 days after the event, as the Kiyv regime decided to escalate. So yeah, that was utter barbarism on behalf of the coup leaders of Ukraine.
The question is lacking historical context of the declaration of state sovereignty of Ukraine from 1990 to be worthy of specificity you’re willing to hear. Welcome to the real world of messy politics that cost human lives, unless guided by level-headed leaders (that the modern Ukraine has been lacking since early 2000s)
Where did I say that annexation was predicated on the fact of joining rather than an intent to join? Next, what was sovereignty of Ukraine predicated on in 1990?
> Curious, do you think Russia is to blame at all for violating the terms of the Budapest Memorandum?
The Budapest Memorandum was predicated on adherence to all prior agreements Ukraine would never see sovereignty without in the first place [1]. Nobody would just let it go in peace without those prior agreements signed in 1990: >> The Ukrainian SSR ceremoniously proclaims its intention to become a permanently neutral state in the future, which will be out of military blocks and will be committed to three non-nuclear principles: not to accept, not to produce and not to acquire the nuclear weapon. (1990) <<
> and the 2008 statement it references was made several governments before the Ukrainian one in power at the time the war began
Are you suggesting there's no succession of power in Ukraine and, effectively, legitimacy with respect to prior governments and their foreign policy stance?
Let's see, in 1994 Ukraine supports military uprisal in Chechnya and aids separatists and their terrorist field commanders arriving from Saudi Arabia and Middle East [1] in a war against Russia on the territory of Russia. Namely, UNA-UNSO (a nationalist “patriotic” [2] organization in Ukraine [3]) leaders Anatoli Lupinos and Dimitro Korchinski led Ukrainian delegations to Grozny to meet with Chechen leaders. Fast forward in 1995, the UNSO fighters organized as the “Viking Brigade” under the command of Oleksandr Muzychko (a man who vowed to fight "communists, Jews and Russians for as long as blood flows in his veins" [4]), are illegally crossing the Russian border in Chechnya and join Mujahideen terrorists in their fight against Russian regulary army.
Twenty years after, when the chickens of the foreign policy had come home to roost in Donbass of 2014, someone nicknamed "golergka" thinks that everything that contradicts his worldview must be a "completely crazy propaganda".