> The first was in 2008 when NATO decided Ukraine could start the NATO membership process.
NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia was, is, and in foreseeable future remains a pipe dream. Any hope of NATO entry was dashed when Russia invaded in 2014, because NATO members did not and do not want to get involved in an on-going conflict. It's always been the opposite: weakness has encouraged Russia to act bolder and bolder. We are now at watershed moment where the previous policy of appeasement has been discredited beyond repair and western experts have finally begun to universally recognize this simple truth.
> This whole war was telegraphed a decade ago and nobody involved was willing to compromise.
There is nothing to compromise over. Russia wants to subjugate us, we want to live in freedom. We have as much common ground with Russians as Britons or the French had with Germans when Hitler "telegraphed" his intentions.
> I think personally that it would have been better if the parties involved could come to a solution based in self-determination and demilitarization.
This strategy is how most neighbors of Russia from Finland down to Romania got invaded by Russia the last time around and lost a sizable portion of their population to Russian crimes of genocide.
Even Sweden, which had been neutral since Napoleonic times, decided to ditch neutrality and sign a mutual defense pact with other European nations, because the threat of Russian aggression is too large to face alone.
NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia was, is, and in foreseeable future remains a pipe dream. Any hope of NATO entry was dashed when Russia invaded in 2014, because NATO members did not and do not want to get involved in an on-going conflict. It's always been the opposite: weakness has encouraged Russia to act bolder and bolder. We are now at watershed moment where the previous policy of appeasement has been discredited beyond repair and western experts have finally begun to universally recognize this simple truth.
> This whole war was telegraphed a decade ago and nobody involved was willing to compromise.
There is nothing to compromise over. Russia wants to subjugate us, we want to live in freedom. We have as much common ground with Russians as Britons or the French had with Germans when Hitler "telegraphed" his intentions.
> I think personally that it would have been better if the parties involved could come to a solution based in self-determination and demilitarization.
This strategy is how most neighbors of Russia from Finland down to Romania got invaded by Russia the last time around and lost a sizable portion of their population to Russian crimes of genocide.
Even Sweden, which had been neutral since Napoleonic times, decided to ditch neutrality and sign a mutual defense pact with other European nations, because the threat of Russian aggression is too large to face alone.