Leroy wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2025 at 7:44am:

Yep.

Leroy wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2025 at 7:44am:


If that were even remotely true, then now that Trump has officially ruled out supporting Ukraine’s NATO membership, effectively taking it off the table, shouldn’t Putin be withdrawing from Ukraine and returning the land Russia has seized?

If this war was truly about NATO expansion, and if Biden was the one who provoked it by visiting Ukraine, then now that Trump has "fixed" the problem, the logical next step should be a full Russian retreat, right?

And yet, if Putin refuses to withdraw, if he won’t even agree to a ceasefire, then your entire argument collapses. Because if NATO membership was the cause, and that cause has been removed, but the war continues, then clearly it was never about NATO to begin with.

Right?

Zelensky was installed by the Ukrainian electorate. He has over 70% support. Good luck replacing him.

HM tanks does Putler have left?

He is conscripting the elites from Moscow and St Petersburg. That could well see Putler defenestrated.

Leroy wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2025 at 8:58am:


So it was never about NATO, Ukraine's real crime in Russia’s eyes was electing someone who wasn’t a Moscow puppet like Viktor Yanukovych?

Russia coveted control over Ukraine, and once that grip was lost, it resorted to brute force. Crimea was the first casualty, seized in 2014, right after Yanukovych was ousted. When that wasn’t enough to strangle Ukraine’s independence, Russia ignited a war in Donbas, financing, arming, and directing separatists while sending in its own unmarked troops, the so-called “little green men”, to deny direct involvement. The goal was simple, keep Ukraine weak, divided, and unable to break free.

That war set the stage for the full-scale invasion of 2022, an all-in effort to topple Zelenskyy, erase Ukrainian sovereignty, and install another Kremlin lapdog.

Yet Leroy would have us believe this was all about NATO, or, even more absurdly, all Biden’s fault.

That argument collapses under its own weight, especially now that Trump has ruled out US support for Ukraine’s membership, and yet Russia remains entrenched, refusing ceasefires and pressing forward. If NATO were the true issue, then why isn’t Russia packing up now that its membership is off the table?

So the real question is, for those like Leroy, why are they ignoring these inconvenient facts?

Is it blind Trump loyalty, where any reality contradicting his self-aggrandising fantasy that "this would never have happened" must be dismissed outright?

Is it a desperate need to pin the blame on Biden, no matter how flimsy the logic?

Or perhaps it’s something more insidious, since Trump has drifted closer to a pro-Russian stance, his followers are now forced to rewire their beliefs to match, no matter how absurd the contortions.

Cognitive dissonance, or TDS for short, is a hell of a drug it seems.

Leroy just can't shake it.

Jovial Monk wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2025 at 2:58pm:


Thank bugger for that. Could be worse though, I could have been a leftie.

ProudKangaroo wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2025 at 1:37pm:


You keep ignoring the complex history of Ukraine: it was part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century, and the Russian-created  USSR in the 20th. 

And all those Russian speaking provinces in Ukraine....

And US/NATO spurning of Russia as an equal partner after the collapse of the USSR. 

And Putin - eyeing the continuous eastward advancement  of NATO which he was not allowed to join, swallowing up the Warsaw Pact countries - Putin  was very angry when 'his man' was ousted as President of Ukraine in favour of a NATO puppet (..."puppets" are in the eye of the beholder).   

You have no capacity to understand  the other bloke's point of view, so off to war you go....   

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Biden supported the illegal Iraq war, and hence no surprise he was prepared  to defend  Ukraine to the last Ukrainian...

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Might be some truth in all that; but your own 'Trump's derangement syndrome' (...Meister's clever  invention)  - in your case , can't see the other bloke point of view  - is a major problem.

Lesson to Europe. Don't poke the Russian bear just for the Democrats