> NATO members were already preparing for the proxy war with Russia by sabotaging diplomatic negotiations
The only proxy forces in this war have been the "people's militias" of the fictious and short-lived Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, which compromised of unmarked members of Russian armed forces, security services, and people under their direct control. Nothing else comes close. > As for Russia's initial battle loses ... Russia had surrounded Kiev, and the only reason it stopped was because Zelensky and the EU superpowers offered to negotiate with them.
The assault on Kyiv failed because the airborne assault did not manage to establish a usable bridgehead that the ground forces were supposed to link up with. Instead of a rapid advance toward Kyiv, Russian ground forces were met by fierce Ukrainian resistance and ran out of fuel, food and ammunition, because they had brought supplies for only a few days. After resupply efforts failed, Russian forces became sitting ducks and had to withdraw or face wipeout. > Cambodia rejects the use or threats of force and does not side with any of the parties in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Prime Minister Hun Sen has declared. The premier stated that support for any party in what he believed had evolved into a proxy battle between the former USSR and US-led NATO countries would violate the Kingdom’s own policy of non-alignment with military blocs.
He changed his position soon thereafter: Prime Minister Hun Sen has reiterated that Cambodia does not support the forceful occupation of one country by another, in comments that apparently referred to the Russian-Ukraine conflict as an “invasion”. “We don’t support the invasion of one country by another. This is our absolutely firm position,” he said while presiding over the inauguration of National Road 21 connecting Kandal province to the Cambodia-Vietnam border. “This is not a small issue because it creates a bad habit for the world: the stronger nation attacking the weaker one. So, if the stronger nation attacks the weaker one, will they attack us [Cambodia]? Then who will help us? This must be clear-cut. This is why we must have a clear position,” he explained.
Good of you to mention bullying. He spoke about that too: Cambodia was one of 141 countries to co-sponsor the draft resolution of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on March 2 condemning Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine. Hun Sen revealed recently that there were countries that allegedly lobbied for Cambodia to abstain on the Russia-Ukraine vote, but did not state which ones.
https://phnompenhpost.com/national/politics/pm-kingdom-again... > This is what the Russian media recently claimed - https://rt-english.com
RT is trash-tier propaganda outlet, on the same level as Breitbart and Infowars. It deserves no attention. > And when you mention that it is only prudent to also mention that Soviet Russia made that pact only because the French and British refused to make a pact with USSR, against Hitler, in the first place.
It's also prudent to mention the reason for refusal. Russia demanded the right to place troops into Poland and expected the French and the British to coerce the Polish government into accepting it, yet again under "security concerns". Poland was naturally opposed to the presence of foreign soldiers on their soil, out of fear that the troops would never leave. History proved them correct. The forces that entered Poland during WWII remained in Poland until 1993 and were instrumental in establishing and sustaining the Russian-controlled communist dictatorship.Stalin was simply shopping around for a way to exploit the looming German-Polish war and gain an opportunity to invade Poland. The French and the British did not agree to pressure the Polish government, so Stalin struck a deal with Hitler who had no such inhibitions.
> It did pre-emptively use the military against many of them when their governments refused to cooperate with it
The governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania accepted all demands and in return they were overthrown from the very same military bases on their soil that were supposed to satisfy Russian "security concerns". National governments were replaced with communist dictatorships under Russian control, and the entire countries remained under full military occupation until 1994. During this period, Russians committed genocide against the local populations, through actions such as mass deportations to Siberian labor camps. > USSR never desired to conquer Finland
Facts speak a different story. Immediately at the start of the war, Russians established the Finnish Democratic Republic and its government and signed a treaty with it that subordinated Finland to the USSR. Finnish DR was supposed to take the place of the legitimate Finnish government, much like Russians set up puppet governments in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which "asked" to be absorbed into the USSR, to add a veneer of legitimacy to the conquest. After the invasion failed, the Finnish DR was quietly disbanded. > Only a moron would believe that Russia has no right to be considered about its "security", or sphere of influence, and thus it is ok to ignore it.
Only morons go around yapping about "Russian security concerns" when Russia itself is the main threat to peace and security in Europe. Russia has severely violated the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, which established guiding principles for security and cooperation in Europe. Among other things, it was agreed in Helsinki that using force to violate territorial integrity and redraw European borders was unacceptable conduct for any European state.