Ukraine will never be brought into NATO proper, particularly now. This kind of saber-rattling is giving Ukrainians false hope and (from Putin's POV) justifying the invasion. Of course, the invasion is not justified.<p>There's so much naivete and ego here. It reminds me of people who are more concerned with being right than winning. Many define winning as one or more of:<p>- Ukraine has the right to self-determination (a principle applied extremely selectively);<p>- We can't reward Putin for his unjustified aggression;<p>- "Appeasement"; and<p>- We (the West in general and the US in particular) have done nothing wrong so why should we give anything up?<p>None of this matters. What matters is ending this war. It's the best outcome for pretty much everyone who isn't Lockheed, Boeing or Northrop. Or I guess the hawks in Washington who see the strategic value in Russia being mired in Afghanistan 2.0.<p>There are only three likely outcomes here:<p>1. Russia conquers Ukraine and rules it directly or through a puppet regime. This seems... unlikely, at least without massive loss of life;<p>2. Russia is mired in another decades-long insurgency before collapsing. Despite Lindsey Graham's cavalier comments, Putin dying or his regime getting toppled is going to create a huge power vacuum, lots of instability and is probably not going to be good for anyone; or<p>3. Through diplomacy.<p>NATO won't enter this war. Put that out of your head.<p>From a game theory perspective, you lose absolutely nothing pursuing a diplomatic end to this. If such efforts fail, you're in exactly the same situation you are now. There's no downside.<p>Putin is bad. This war is wrong. But US foreign policy here has been abysmal and is a significant contributing factor in precipitating this war. I'm amazed at how many people can't (or refuse to) wrap their heads around the simple concept that this isn't victim-blaming or apologism for Russia to point say both sides can be wrong even if one side (Russia) is way more wrong than the other.
These past few days we are trying to see how far we can take this proxy war without having to invoke NATO's Article 5 and precipitate into WW3. These are very precarious times.
It's insane how much Kremlin apologia there is on HN.<p>Some comments are saying we shouldn't put sanctions on Russia or support the Ukrainian resistance because it will prolong the war and civilian casualties.<p>Putin and Lavrov have said that Ukraine is a historical mistake that should be undone. They want to assimilate Ukraine into Russia. Commit cultural genocide. How is the very existence of a nation and people not worth supporting?
They used to call this the 'Salami Game', we are fighting over a slice of Salami - why fight, I just want one and a single slice of Salami is not worth fighting over
... after a while, there is just the string the Salami hung by - that is not worth fighting over either.
As to Russia and NATO cyber defence group - Russia will take this badly and may well use it to cease the humanitarian corridors, so the people leave and Russia gets well working infrastructure = let them fight to the end = rubble infrastructure.
Recall the USSR was crooked and venally corrupt at all levels - this klepto-culture eventually killed the USSR.
Think of economic growth as rolling a snowball, each turn it get a little thicker
- but not the USSR, every turn they steal what it grew plus more = Russian snowballs do not grow.
The freed parts of the USSR inherited the klepto culture - after the fall = big grab and the first wave of crooked kleptocrats - then came Putin - he allied with the crime gangs who killed off the first wave of kleptocrats and became them. We have all seen the excesses of these kleptos. China has the same problem, but has tried to reform with klepto prison/education/killing.<p>In essence Putin is surrounded with a group of thieves. The people in general hate this and try to defend against it as best they can. In Russia when the USSR was running, they were very good at cash sale fleamarketing - which was allowed as it helped people to exist. Now the next wave of ologarchic kleptocracy has matured. They have grabbed all oil/gas/mineral/wood assets and sell and grab the cash.
The military is filled with klepto = theft of all manner of portable goods, metals etc - whatever they can get away with - usually by sharing up the line by giving a cut to the hierarchy. The 2 year conscript military means they have no capable soldiers - even the special forces are goof-offs, display soldiers. The paratroops proved also to be useless floating targets because they suffered huge losses when dropped into groups of well armed soldiers and public. They worked only when dropped onto a surprised soft civilian target.<p>Poland is training pilots for a few squadrons of A10 Warthogs. When word of the 60Km isolated convoy leaked the instructors who were skilled USA battle hardened pilots wanted to have a few Thunder Runs - they would have wrecked that convoy chapter and verse - wiser heads prevailed, as a debacle like that might have been the tipping point if a few USA people were shot down - always a risk with Soviet Air defences = quite good.
Much better would be to have closed the airspace in the Ukraine.<p>EDIT:<p>People down-voting it, looking away, fearing an atomic war in Europe, are just accepting Putins bluff. He has no reason to start a nuclear war, if no bomb is being dropped in Russia. And if Russia invades Poland or Romania, what are you willing to do? Keep looking away. That's has nothing to do with who signed with NATO or not,but do the right thing.