Every country in the entire history of the world has tried to exercise influence on other countries. This isn't anything new or necessary nefarious or a Western invention. The Western actions you describe are often also quite incompetent and not always profound. Steve Coll's work is very illustrative in that regard. More importantly, Western influence has been overwhelmingly positive for Central and Eastern Europe, while Russian influence has been overwhelmingly bad. There is no point in equating the two, as anyone who lived in both systems can tell you.

Russia, within its current borders, already is a monstrous entity that has consumed everything. Russia is the last 19th-century empire left on the planet. The ethnic group that rules this enormous land mass comes from a tiny sliver of that land mass.

Putin is not a lunatic in the sense that he exemplifies what many Russians believe to be true - that they own the world around them. But I don't know how anyone who has watched his speeches in the last few years can claim that he is a rational actor.

jones What you Gurgen or Steak all fail to grasp is how profound and comparably subtle Western influence is globally. Whether it's bombs dropping or drone strikes (reserved for brown and black people), extortionate backdoor diplomacy, funding of opposition be they moderate free market oriented reformers or jihadi rebels, organisational support and schooling of said opposition through the School of the Americas or the NED, covert activity from any of the letter agencies etc - you can't overstate how it's totally impossible for anything resembling normal governance in the countries affected to be achieved. That goes for both Russia and it's small neighbours.

How do you square this with the fact that Eastern Europe are the most vociferous proponents of NATO and the likes of Poland/Baltic states have generally been pressuring Western Europe to step up since 2014? It’s worth pausing for thought that countries that supposedly share “deep cultural ties” and were behind an iron curtain for the most part of the previously century have come to this conclusion. They’re not being led, they’re leading from the front.

You don’t have to tell me that the US led Western order has decimated entire regions to further their objectives but there’s been regions (definitely a smaller list by my count) where those interventions have been brought through by the wishes of the people living there because it gives themselves leverage against regional rivals - this is true of Eastern Europe, for example.

I agree that Russia is weaker than the scare stories make them out to be and certainly hysteria to justify further escalations needs to be neatly separated from the facts. However, in isolation - Russia would have no issues in a 1 v 1 battle against Ukraine or most of Eastern Europe which is what drove most of those countries into NATO in the 90s/early 00s. Also, there’s plenty of historical precedent which even Putin has cited as to why those buffer states should remain in the Russian sphere of influence.

I haven’t called Putin insane/lunatic - he wants to maintain his control of his region. The NATO ex-Warsaw Pact countries don’t want this and will probably repel Russia for the foreseeable future justifying their decision. Ukraine were caught in two minds and will likely be split in two as a result.

      Well said @Mirth

      I would add that while Ukraine was caught in two minds, Russia’s interest in it, and need, is much greater than most of the other surrounding nations.

      Russia views Ukraine with great interest more so due to geographic value than due to NATO. I think NATO expansion has been a great excuse for Russia, when really the main issue at hand is the warm weather port, Moldovan/Ukranian flats (bread basket and attack vector), and oil pipeline routes.

      It’s easier for Russia to hide behind an offensive attack due to concerns around NATO than it is for them to justify a land grab, even if there’s similar demographics in the region.

      There is not a single Russian demand about Ukraine from 2014 that will not be the same or more now in 2025. So what has the war deterred?

      The war has led to Putin's domestic popularity soaring.

      There's 80 years of NATO tradition of having zero appetite for a direct confrontation with Russia. It's just not happening and I hope we all agree it must not happen.

      To back the way things have played out for western strategy in Ukraine we have to agree there was absolutely no way to dodge Putin's invasion.

      Do people really believe that? This invasion was locked in and certain in 2013? 2015? I never have.

      Mirth How do you square this with the fact that Eastern Europe are the most vociferous proponents of NATO and the likes of Poland/Baltic states have generally been pressuring Western Europe to step up since 2014?

      If we're doing a "Putin is Hitler" analogy, then Soviet conduct during the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis would be the equally slippery analogy for what NATO has been doing to Ukraine here. "You guys fight them, we'll be right over the river backing you up".

      You talk to Polish people today, that treachery is why they have a sustained hate for Russia. The Katyn massacre and not just the food shortages, repression and propaganda, and confiscated passports up to the late 1980s.

      This is the kind of conduct Ukraine is experiencing from Trump's United States now. Ukraine is about to go back to negotiation on 2014 lines, but this time with a weaker position and a huge minerals mortgage from Trump.

          MistaT This is what I mean. Treacherous stuff from the United States.

          Sachs isn't really doing himself any credit here … he strays from some points that hit the target into tinfoil hat territory. Jacketing the CIA for JFK's assassination sixty years after the fact is "jet fuel can't melt steam beams" stuff. The CIA has been a terrible out of control shit show whether or not it had JFK killed.

          The ongoing role of neocon hawks such as Victoria Nuland in the Obama and Biden administrations should be remembered. Nuland is married to Robert Kagan, the conservative columnist co-founder of PNAC.

          Nuland, Kagan and their peers are some of the most shameless warmongers the world has ever known.

          They swore the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were absolutely necessary. They also say Putin's invasion was completely unavoidable. For this type of US official there is always a war, and it could never have been avoided.

              Burnwinter an invasion may not have been inevitable but Putin has just seen regular messages that the west don't have any will to resist. A negotiation in 2014 would equally not have led in my view too this being over. The best approach that the west could take but whether it has the stomach which I doubt is too freeze Russia out of any economic dealings with the west, keep sanctions on them even if a peace is concluded with the message that this is what a war such as this costs. There should be no normalisation with them from an economic sense so they have no ability to be restrengthening after. It's the only language Putin understands.

                  awooga83 A negotiation in 2014 would equally not have led in my view too this being over.

                  I agree. And equally it won't be over after any negotiation that happens now either.

                  It may naively look like Russia, but the strategic winner from the last decade in Ukraine is the United States. Russia's had to fight a bloody war, lose all international standing and lose its European markets. The EU has had to lose its ties to Russia and get humiliated. And Ukraine's been fucked by all sides.

                  Meanwhile the United States has a functional onshore gas industry, and has cut the EU halfway off from a great power rival ... and now it's come back round with a different hat on to extract a few hundred billion for doing the favour, while calling itself a peacemaker.

                    JazzG hope that's some fake text-to-video nonsense...

                        Coombs thought the same but apparently it's real.

                        These people need their heads examined.

                          Pepe LeFrits no surprises that there are so many lies thrown out. Yet it doesn't seem to filter to anyone who idolises this idiot. Meanwhile Musk showing what a coward he is after talking so much rubbish online now he isn't actually firing anybody and it's all recommendation. This whole thing is a total shit show. Does anyone still believe this is being done properly.

                          https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/06/elon-musk-republicans-federal-workers-firings

                            Should be flagged for removal because it dropped an atomic bomb, but that's not the debate I guess.

                            Fash all riled up about DEE: diversity, equity and explosion.

                            JazzG can't decide what's worse between this and Gavin newsom yucking it up with Charlie Kirk on a podcast. but at the end of the day, people vote governments out rather than vote governments in. if the GOP screw up enough, and there's still functional elections, the milquetoast dems will find their way back.

                              Gurgen that its the Atlantic is the first red flag. Go ahead, Gurgs. Defeat the Russians.

                              If they aren't going to be defeated, whether they can be is academic.