And that is also the case. What options would there be against Russia without the possibility of economic sanctions?
War! And not only in Ukraine
Not fueling their imperial fanfiction to begin with. The original mistake was offering them aid after the fall of the USSR without requiring steps towards liberal democracy in exchange.
That led to the rise of oil and gas oligarchs meanwhile the ordinary people suffered. That's why they voted for a "strong" leader: Putin.
> What options would there be against Russia without the possibility of economic sanctions?
Continue to supply arms to Ukraine without an energy crisis?
With another Russian leader it might have worked. But Putin, for whatever reason, chose potential glory over economic prosperity. A move so foreign to European democracies that we refused to see it coming.
There couldn't possibly be anything more false. This horse has been beaten to death already and should just be let to die.
European countries had entangled economies and were still going to war with each other. France and Germany were each other's biggest trading partners and that didn't stop them fighting each other in WW1 or WW2.
The reason why we have had peace after WW2 is the implementation of fully fledged democracies with separation of powers in the major European leaderships along with US peacekeeping and the Marshal plan.
Russia was not a democracy anymore after the 1993 coup since the president there could do whatever he wants without the parliament able to stop him and therefore should not have been trusted as a fair trading partner.
He stated his reasons. He believes there was a western-backed military coup in 2014. Ukraine failed to implement the Minsk agreements. Ukraine is attempting to join NATO. He believed an assault on the breakaway republics was imminent. He believes Ukraine is harboring literal Nazis, committing crimes against humanity against ethnic Russians.
Those are more or less the stated reasons.
IMO, Ukraine was a vassal state, much like Puerto Rico to the US. Maybe the relationship wasn't so formalized, but Russia viewed Ukraine as theirs one way or another. For some reason, people in the western world operate on some kind of technicality system, as if words on paper make a difference.
Yes, we call this "rule of law" and it works really well in the west.
We have pretend rule of law. We pretend the law matters, and we pretend to follow it.
In any case, Putin argues that the war (or in his parlance, SMO) is legal under UN precedent in Yugoslavia, that a breakaway republic may be recognized even if the former nation dissents.
IMO, this whole ordeal could have been avoided, but Western backed Ukraine decided it was better to fight than capitulate to Russia's demands.
Ukraine, as we can see in reality, isn't Russia. Don't identify as Russia and has not been wanting to be part of Moscow-ruled territory for a few decades.
How exactly could this whole ordeal been avoided? Letting Putin continue the dismantling of Ukraine through civil wars and separatist movements?
Not have a western backed military coup in 2014, for starters?
As I said, Ukraine was essentially a vassal state of Russia. The coup in 2014 meant to overthrow vassal status. This kicked off a civil war.
There's a series of events that lead to the current war which could have been handled differently. But Nationalism won out, people decided that giving autonomy to some regions was unacceptable and worth fighting for.
Many people think this, but it's factually incorrect.
While we're talking about suspicious foreign involvement, let's talk about the $15bn that Putin offered Yanukovych (and which Yanukovych accepted) hours before police were ordered to crack down on protests. Or the documents which showed that Russian officials served as advisers in the crackdown on protesters (operations Wave and Boomerang) including the use of snipers and the planned use of 22,000 security troops in Kyiv alone.
I'm sorry, but this is a basic fact of the events, and you are tragically misinformed. Many people are misinformed, many media outlets played up the 'peaceful protests' angle, but there is no doubt, there was an armed insurrection.
I think this article offers a glimpse of what was being reported at the time [1]. Scores of police captured, 3 killed, 28 shot. This was prior to the presidential palace being captured, that happened once the police flipped sides.
1: https://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/kiev-ukraine-proteste...
There's no pretense. We mostly do follow the law, and the law very much matters. The Iraq War is the exception that proves the rule.
> IMO, this whole ordeal could have been avoided, but Western backed Ukraine decided it was better to fight than capitulate to Russia's demands.
"WWII could have been avoided, but Allied Europe decided it was better to fight than capitulate to Nazi demands." Obviously nations are going to fight for their sovereignty.
> In any case, Putin argues that the war (or in his parlance, SMO) is legal under UN precedent in Yugoslavia, that a breakaway republic may be recognized even if the former nation dissents.
Anyone can argue that anything is legal, that doesn't make them right. Notably, the UN collectively disagrees with him.