Couldn’t we, the UK, just like… stop interfering with Russia? Call a truce of some sort? FWIW I admit I’m completely ignorant as to what’s going on, other than we’re supplying arms to Ukraine. Is it all about that?
The UK could, if Russia would stop interfering with Ukraine.
What’s Ukraine got to do with the UK though?
Obvs I’m against war in principle, but why are we even involved in something several thousand miles away that doesn’t border us or even the Commonwealth?
Because the UK (and the US and Russia) agreed to protect Ukrainian sovereignty after Ukraine willingly had the Soviet nuclear arsenal dismantled after the Soviet Union dissolved.
In 1994, Ukraine agreed to transfer these weapons to Russia for dismantlement and became a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, in exchange for economic compensation and assurances from Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom to respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty within its existing borders.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
The other reason is basically the same reason why the UK got involved on the side of Poland in 1939.
Ok that is really useful context, thank you
Imagine if westerners applied the same standard for “at war” to themselves that they do to Russia: they’d basically have been at war with most of the world for the last century.
Your ignorance is showing.
I mean come on even Argentina has barely done anything provocative lately. Meanwhile Russia has literally carried out assassinations in the UK.
By what metric do you consider this to be an overreaction?
I didn’t mean other countries were doing things do the West, lol.
I meant the West has constantly been doing to most of the world what westerners are no trying to describe as “war” when Russia does it. Hell, the Russian Federation isn’t doing anything to the West that the West hasn’t been doing to it since the day it was formed
You do realise that the whole point of the United Nations is so that things like that this don’t happen anymore. Of course that presupposes everybody’s going to play nicely. Deals with Russia aren’t worth the paper written on, vis-a-vis Ukraine.
So how can we not be at war with an entity so fundamentally untrustworthy. You are complaining that the West is at war with Russia (as if the Western democracies are a united front) but that’s because Russia is constantly breaking the rules. If they just stayed within their own borders that wouldn’t be a problem.
Your problem is that you’ve already decided who is right and who is wrong and you’re not going to allow anything like reality to get in the way of that.
You do realise that the whole point of the United Nations is so that things like that this don’t happen anymore.
No? The point of the UN is to stop actual wars, not what the UK is trying to describe as war, which are things that the west has been consistently doing for the entire lifetime of the UN.
So how can we not be at war with an entity so fundamentally untrustworthy.
Because a lot of countries are fundamentally untrustworthy? Including all of the ones who are signed onto the Rome Statute who are still supporting Israel. Which includes the UK. If you really want to redefine terms so that any untrustworthy country is inherently at war, then the UK is at war with the entire world.
You are complaining that the West is at war with Russia
No, I’m pointing out that the West isn’t at war with Russia, and it’s an Orwellian abuse of language to say they are.
that’s because Russia is constantly breaking the rules
There is no rule that Russia has broken that the west, especially the UK, hasn’t repeatedly and flagrantly violated both in the past and currently.
Your problem is that you’ve already decided who is right and who is wrong and you’re not going to allow anything like reality to get in the way of that.
Wrong. Nothing I have said implies that; I’m guessing this is a go to straw-man you go to, but it most certainly doesn’t apply to me. If anything, it sounds like you’re projecting; you’ve already decided whos wrong and that’s why you’re not actually reading or responding to what I’m saying.
