I don’t think it would have been no more

I think they’d have installed a pro-Russian government and had a Ukraine under Russian influence which may or may not have been ok. They’ve tried to do it softly before but have been overthrown by the west. I would be thinking a somewhat less authoritarian Belarus.

But as to your question, if Ukraine were no more it would be horrible. But geopolitically would it have been as disastrous as what might ensue?

Would it be ok to sit back and allow Ukrainian Crimea and Donbas to be no more?

These are questions. You seem to be taking a quite simplistic position. I am not attempting any position although I condemn any military invasion of any territory. I really don’t know and that’s the only thing about it I do know.

I guess if you look at it from a Russian perspective, since the end of the Soviet Union, NATO and the EU have swallowed up latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and obviously east Germany. They’ve also added other areas with traditional Russian interest - finland, Croatia, Slovenia etc. So maybe they see they need to act to secure influence in Ukraine and the Black Sea before the EU and NATO essentially take all of the former Soviet influence in europe.

If NATO mad EU hadn’t done that, do we think Russia would already have retaken some of the Baltics and Central European states? It’s possible. I have no idea.

Posted By: Legacy Fan, Sep 21, 17:05:20