Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Lime
Putin has failed to make an ironclad ally of Ukraine, or make it very economically worrisome for them to consider NATO as an option. Even if they had poor political ties with Russia, if the economic benefit was there, they wouldn't risk losing it for a military agreement. With a lack of economic clout, Putin resorted to the stick.
It's as if Canada was poor (more ill run politically than it is now!) and decided that the best way forward was to join Warsaw, because the USA had been dicks to Canada for decades upon decades.
Ukraine wasn't built up like Europe and didn't recover with Russia at the same rate (ironically they both would have benefited greatly by stronger ties than they have). This is a very long string of diplomatic failure.
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There's no doubt there were plenty of diplomatic and economic failures, including that on Russian side, all the way here.
And I'm not even sure why West and Russia are even antagonists at all. There were surely some issues, but it's not like the countries are so different that they couldn't collaborate and trade and prosper together. I don't see them competing for the same resources either.