I’m not going to entertain the thought of what “neutrality” would mean, because the entire “neutral buffer” argument is just Russian propaganda. Ukraine wasn’t neutral before 2014, it was squarely within the Russian sphere of influence since the collapse of the union. Let’s reverse the situation. Let’s say Russia wins, dismantles the current Ukrainian government and sets up the “legitimate” Ukrainian government, would Ukraine become a “neutral buffer”? No. It would become a vassal state of Russia because Russia can’t give Ukraine the autonomy to make their own decisions, otherwise they might decide to turn westward again.
Maybe that’s the hypocrisy the meme is pointing to, that the neutrality argument in its entirety is bullshit because Ukraine was never neutral to begin with.
The argument you make ignores a few - well, many - ENORMOUS caveats. The key question is security neutrality. Ukraine may have been considered in Russia’s “sphere of influence” economically, culturally and to some degree politically, but on the matter of security that is absolutely not the case.
Since independence it has straddled the line, with several attempts to push closer to the West due to structural security disputes with Russia left over from independence. Just for one example, a nation that was in the Russia sphere of influence would not have sent troops to aid the US occupation of Iraq, an invasion Russia opposed, in order to win favor with the Bush administration.
I really dislike the attempt to frame very commonly use concept of neutrality, which is a term that even NATO scholarship on the issue uses to refer to Ukrainian non-alignment, as “prooaganda”.
I dislike even more when discussions about the history of th issue are met with counterfactuals and hypotheticals. Then it becomes a counterproductive polemical debate where one can claim that Putin and Ukraine would be lovey-dovey besties forever if not for NATO expansion or that Putin would absorb Ukraine in a neo-Soviet Anschluss and march on Riga and Warsaw if not for NATO. It’s not useful framing at all.
If the key question is security neutrality how exactly was the EU-Ukraine association agreement a security issue for Russia? Because Euromaidan wasn’t about joining NATO, it was about wanting the possibility of joining the EU.
I’m not going to entertain the thought of what “neutrality” would mean, because the entire “neutral buffer” argument is just Russian propaganda. Ukraine wasn’t neutral before 2014, it was squarely within the Russian sphere of influence since the collapse of the union. Let’s reverse the situation. Let’s say Russia wins, dismantles the current Ukrainian government and sets up the “legitimate” Ukrainian government, would Ukraine become a “neutral buffer”? No. It would become a vassal state of Russia because Russia can’t give Ukraine the autonomy to make their own decisions, otherwise they might decide to turn westward again.
Maybe that’s the hypocrisy the meme is pointing to, that the neutrality argument in its entirety is bullshit because Ukraine was never neutral to begin with.
The argument you make ignores a few - well, many - ENORMOUS caveats. The key question is security neutrality. Ukraine may have been considered in Russia’s “sphere of influence” economically, culturally and to some degree politically, but on the matter of security that is absolutely not the case.
Since independence it has straddled the line, with several attempts to push closer to the West due to structural security disputes with Russia left over from independence. Just for one example, a nation that was in the Russia sphere of influence would not have sent troops to aid the US occupation of Iraq, an invasion Russia opposed, in order to win favor with the Bush administration.
I really dislike the attempt to frame very commonly use concept of neutrality, which is a term that even NATO scholarship on the issue uses to refer to Ukrainian non-alignment, as “prooaganda”.
I dislike even more when discussions about the history of th issue are met with counterfactuals and hypotheticals. Then it becomes a counterproductive polemical debate where one can claim that Putin and Ukraine would be lovey-dovey besties forever if not for NATO expansion or that Putin would absorb Ukraine in a neo-Soviet Anschluss and march on Riga and Warsaw if not for NATO. It’s not useful framing at all.
If the key question is security neutrality how exactly was the EU-Ukraine association agreement a security issue for Russia? Because Euromaidan wasn’t about joining NATO, it was about wanting the possibility of joining the EU.