>Bush, Clinton, W. Bush also tried to normalize with Russia. Everyone hoped Putin was sane.
Bush Jr, who unilaterally withdrew from the START treaty in 2002[1], and pushed to establish ABM sites in eastern Europe in 2007? That's considered "normalizing"?[2][3] And Putin, who protested both of these actions as destabilizing, is somehow considered the not-sane one in this narrative?
>Ukraine has depleted Russias military stockpiles and their National Wealth Fund. Russia was weaker than people thought.
"Russia is never as strong as she appears....and Russia is never as weak as she appears." -- multiple attributions including Bismark and Churchill
Russia was supposed to run out of ballistic missiles...in summer 2022.[4] They've also likely taken more casualties than the entire active duty strength of the UK, French, and German land forces combined (73K + 118K + 63K ~= 250k) while still keeping a cohesive force capable of offensive combat operations in the field, which has GROWN since the war started to somewhere around 550-650K (up from ~200-350K in 2022).[5][6] Russia only appears weak by the standard established by the US 1990-2005....but the US is essentially a super-saiyan and functioned on a different plane of existence from every other military in the world.
The article in Telegraph is not about ballistic missiles, but about a very specific type of cruise missile, Kh-55, which is a nuclear capable missile.
There are other cruise missiles that Russia makes, and there is still production of ballistic, aero ballistic and hypersonic ones.
I am in no way defending their conduct but they did simply ask for a firm No NATO in Ukraine and they were rebuffed before he 2022 invasion and during initial post invasion negotiations.
They absolutely positively did not. They wanted to roll back of NATO membership as a start and were uninterested when Ukraine was trying to avert the possibility of a larger scale invasion (not to mention when Russia violated both Minsk treaties then pretended it didn't apply to them).
Russia knew that Ukraine had little chance of getting into NATO in early 2022 and wasn't even persuing it after the revolution of dignity before the 2014 invasion
Bush Jr, who unilaterally withdrew from the START treaty in 2002[1], and pushed to establish ABM sites in eastern Europe in 2007? That's considered "normalizing"?[2][3] And Putin, who protested both of these actions as destabilizing, is somehow considered the not-sane one in this narrative?
>Ukraine has depleted Russias military stockpiles and their National Wealth Fund. Russia was weaker than people thought.
"Russia is never as strong as she appears....and Russia is never as weak as she appears." -- multiple attributions including Bismark and Churchill
Russia was supposed to run out of ballistic missiles...in summer 2022.[4] They've also likely taken more casualties than the entire active duty strength of the UK, French, and German land forces combined (73K + 118K + 63K ~= 250k) while still keeping a cohesive force capable of offensive combat operations in the field, which has GROWN since the war started to somewhere around 550-650K (up from ~200-350K in 2022).[5][6] Russia only appears weak by the standard established by the US 1990-2005....but the US is essentially a super-saiyan and functioned on a different plane of existence from every other military in the world.
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unilateral-withdrawal-fro...
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna21262371
[3] https://www.insightturkey.com/articles/missile-defense-in-eu...
[4] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/01/vladimir-p...
[5] https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4589095-russian-army-grow...
[6] https://archive.is/zQ6CU