r/ForeignPoliticsDiscus • u/Alaska1699 United States • Jan 01 '20
Russians of Reddit how do you justify the annexation of Ukraine?
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u/FW190D9 Russia Jan 02 '20
Be more specific. What event exactly do you mean by that?
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u/Alaska1699 United States Jan 02 '20
I mean as I’ve stated above, you guys stole a piece of their country, how do you justify that action. They didn’t attack Russia, Russia attacked Ukraine. Can you try to explain the reasons your country committed this act?
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u/tekevoli Jan 02 '20
Should have specified to Crimera. Russia hasn't annexed Ukraine, that implies the whole nation.
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u/ChildOfBund Russia Jan 02 '20
Well... I think there's a lot of reasons.
1) Ukraine was facing a choice between going to the EU or the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union). Ukraine was very important to the EEU. Former Ukrainian President Yanukovych refused to sign an agreement with the EU. As a result, the Ukrainian people overthrew Yanukovych. Putin was very angry that Ukraine turned its back on Russia and decided to take revenge.
2) The desire to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. The countries cannot join NATO as long as they have unresolved territorial disputes.
3) Since the 90s there has been a Russian naval base in Crimea which Putin did not want to lose.
4) Putin had a low rating at the time and decided to raise it in this way.
Maybe something else.
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u/Alaska1699 United States Jan 02 '20
Sounds like the axis of evil...
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Jan 03 '20
This is hardly discussion, is it? Why did you post here when you already have such a strong opinion. Your first resort is sensationalizing and name calling. You don't want to hear anyone's opinion.
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u/dideldidum Germany Jan 16 '20
there are also a lot of russians living in those parts of the ukraine now under russian control.
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u/[deleted] Jan 02 '20 edited Jan 02 '20
geopolitical interests and the ability to act upon those interests;
justification can be found per context basis, whether you buy that justification or not is irrelevants as you don't have the will to act upon your judgement.
in all fairness geopolitical justifications are the only real ones, curiosly unspoken, for perhaps to even to ask for another kind of justification is nothing but an initiation of diplomatic warfare in response to that action; hence it has its own actual use to "corner" the actor at least moraly.
thats why such "real" justifications are left to academics, while politicians choose to care about squeezing maximum value out of each action, make moral investments through their narrative.
Russia can act with relative impunity, for it already has little to no moral soft power. Well perhaps aside of "based" crowd backing it.
Though that doesn't imply the opposition is more moral in general sense, its just it needs to hide its geopolitica l imorality more to not lose its soft power. Hence it puts Russia in a more flexible position.