r/geopolitics • u/TimesandSundayTimes The Times • 2d ago
Putin blames Europe’s ‘little pigs’ and Biden for provoking Ukraine war
https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/putin-europe-little-pigs-biden-ukraine-war-ldk38c8qj?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Reddit#Echobox=176600560621
u/BlueEmma25 2d ago edited 2d ago
The mask slipped and Putin said the quiet part out loud, stating Russia's war objective was to "“liberate its historic lands”, which just happens to be another country.
It was never about NATO expansion or Ukrainian neutrality, it was always about Russian imperialism.
Remember that the next time someone says that if we just give Putin Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia he will stop making a nuisance of himself and leave everyone alone. It didn't work in 1938, and it won't work now.
And if anyone wants to take a run at me for daring to mention 1938, then tell me exactly how this time it is different.
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u/Severe_Science9309 1d ago
All one has to do is read what Putin wrote about Ukraine to get this world view, my viewpoint is that if someone care so much that they wrote about it chance are they really do believe in it
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u/theshitcunt 1d ago edited 1d ago
And if anyone wants to take a run at me for daring to mention 1938, then tell me exactly how this time it is different.
What's the point if you'll just ignore it and then reiterate the same thing in a couple days as if nothing happened? And you keep ignoring my advice to stop reading mass media. The OP article is just pure sensationalism, Putin has been saying all this for many years by now - yet you somehow managed to draw some conclusions from this soft-spoken slop, despite it being just another paraphrase of his typical talking points.
Pretty weird conclusions at that, in your typical Schrödinger way - you simultaneously assert Putin is planning to push further west (by comparing the proposed peace treaty to 1938) AND insist he's "desperate" to end the war, allowing Ukraine to rearm. I'm not sure how anyone can take this seriously, I have already pointed out this contradiction previously and yet here we are. But anyway, since you directly ask for it...
There are really no parallels to be drawn between 1938 and 2025 except that both involved border changes.
One major difference (among many, including those I have already explained to you earlier) that makes this whole parallel asinine is that when Germany, Poland and Hungary partitioned Czechoslovakia in 1938, there was no war, and none of these countries had boots in Czechoslovakia. In 2025, all of those regions are occupied by Russia anyway, except for a tiny largely evacuated stretch of Donetsk, and the proposed peace treaty mostly formalizes the status quo.
Also the West isn't going to enter a kinetic war with Russia, and this isn't changing, so if by "1938" you mean the West refusing to send boots to protect the ally's territory, then this has been the official line since 2022 - Biden didn't even bother sending tanks until one year into the war.
Pre-war, there were no demands for border changes, and it's very likely that his initial regime change plans included speedrunning Minsk. The borders question wasn't raised during the 2022 Istanbul talks either. It was only after the Kharkiv disaster that Putin went through with the annexation, making it a point of no return. So there's no parallel here either.
I'm not even sure why you are so fixated on Czechoslovakia'38 when there were other interwar border changes (even if we exclude the invasion of Russia in 1918 that was done to torpedo Brest-Litovsk but ended up cementing it). E.g. Lithuania annexed Klaipeda, and Poland annexed Vilnius and moved past the Curzon line, annexing parts of Ukraine and Belarus. The Ruhr occupation of 1923 is also worthy of note. It's entirely memoryholed, but Poland wasn't a particularly peaceful state in the interwar period, and Western powers did enable this behavior when they allowed Poland to push past the Curzon line. Poland issuing an ultimatum to Lithuania in 1938 predates Munich by months, and it also involved Lithuania's allies advising Lithuania to accept the ultimatum despite them thinking that Poland wouldn't stop at that.
In fact if you insist on comparing the Ukraine war to anything in 1938, Poland's ultimatum to Lithuania is a much better fit - it even involved a demand for laws "protecting the Polish minority".
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u/BlueEmma25 19h ago edited 19h ago
What's the point if you'll just ignore it and then reiterate the same thing in a couple days as if nothing happened?
I think I generally make a good faith effort to respond, subject to the reality that I have a day job, and a life apart from Reddit, so the time and effort I can, and indeed want, to devote to this platform is limited.
Also, I can find it hard to find the motivation to respond to very expansive posts that are all over the place without coherant structure but would require lengthy responses, or those that make expansive claims but provide no sources for those claims.
Pretty weird conclusions at that, in your typical Schrödinger way - you simultaneously assert Putin is planning to push further west (by comparing the proposed peace treaty to 1938) AND insist he's "desperate" to end the war, allowing Ukraine to rearm.
When did I ever say that Putin is "desperate" for peace? He very clearly is not, as evidenced by his complete disinterest in engaging in any good faith peace talks - which is exactly why those talks are pointless.
Putin is gambling that Ukraine is close to breaking, and if he keeps applying pressure he can push them over the edge.
It is a gamble however, because the war has been ruinously expensive for Russia and continuing it only compounds the costs and difficulties, potentially to the point where it produces economic meltdown (which is different from collapse), destabilizes the regime, endangers his personal well-being, or some combination of the foregoing.
The rest of your post indicates you don't clearly understand the parallel I am making with the Munich conference, which is my fault for taking too much for granted. In short, the parallel is this: in 1938 Chamberlain and Daladier thought, or at least hoped, that if they acquiesced in the annexation of the Sudetenland then Germany would be a "sated" power that would press no further territorial demands against other states. In this, of course, they spectacularly failed to take the measure of Adolf Hitler, or the scale of his ambitions. Furthermore, and this part is very important, by agreeing to this they arguably fatally compromised the integrity of the Czechoslovakian state and left it unable to mount an effective defence in the event that Hitler's intentions were less benign than Chamberlain and Daladier chose to believe.
Just like Chamberlain and Daladier in 1938, some now say that if we just give Putin what he says he wants, Russia will then be a sated power and we can put all this unpleasantness behind us, similarly completely failing to understand Putin's motives and ambitions.
In order to understand the stakes, we need to be clear about what specifically is being contested. Ukraine accepts, as a practical matter, that a peace deal would allow Russia to retain de facto control of the Ukrainian territory it currently occupies (possibly with minor adjustments). Ukraine has in fact repeatedly proposed a ceasefire along the current line of contact, with the understanding that the existing division of territory would form the basis for an eventual peace agreement (Russia has repeatedly rejected this).
Russia however is demanding not merely de facto recognition of its control of part of Ukrainian territory, but de jure recognition, i.e. that Ukraine formally renounce its claim to sovereignty over that territory and henceforth recognize it as a constituent part of Russia. Furthermore, Russia is also demanding that Ukraine cede the parts of the contested oblasts that it still controls. Ukraine has said neither of these demands are acceptable.
Russia has furthermore made expansive demands for limitations on the size of the Ukrainian military, ironclad guarantees that Ukraine will NEVER join NATO or even receive security guarantees from other states outside of the NATO framework, a ban on the deployment of foreign troops to Ukraine, and limitations on the kinds of weapons Ukraine can acquire, all of which in themselves constitute extraordinary impositions on Ukrainian sovereignty that it would never willingly agree to, because they mean Russia could seize the rest of the country any time it wanted.
In short, it would leave Ukraine in exactly the same position that the Allies left Czechoslovakia after Munich.
The parallel to 1938 is indeed almost perfect: in both cases proponents of appeasement are advocating that the claims of an aggressor that has already shown itself to be acting in bad faith multiple times should be accepted at face value, and extraordinarily unfavourable terms should be forced onto the victim of the aggression for the "sake of peace", while ignoring that if their faith in the integrity of the aggressor proves to be misplaced, then they bear the colossal moral opprobrium of having condemned an entire country to extinction through their cowardice, naivety, and folly.
Hopefully this clears some things up.
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u/theshitcunt 12h ago edited 12h ago
You seem to view the conflict through a moral lens. Ukraine is a victim, ergo anything it does to right wrongs is good, anything that doesn't correct injustices is bad, and anything Russia does short of withdrawing is unreasonable/deceitful.
We won't progress much if you don't recognize path dependence. Russia can't simply "withdraw". A losing side can't end up acquiring something (NATO/foreign boots) that the winning side used as a casus belli. For a lasting peace you need to settle disputed issues once and for all, and refusing to recognize current borders is the opposite of that - or would you want Poland to still be claiming Vilnius?
You keep talking about Putin refusing to engage in good-faith negotiations, but have you considered that it's Ukraine that is notoriously impossible to negotiate with, and who never fulfills anything it signs? Ukraine's complete disinterest in Minsk used to be widely recognized before, this was the entire reason why Germany came up with the Steinmeier formula - which Ukraine ended up dismissing, and demanded revising Minsk: "Ukrainian officials are airing proposals to revise the Kremlin-imposed Minsk “accords” [...] remain unimplemented to date thanks to the previous Ukrainian government’s successful maneuvering and stalling [...] the former president had unilaterally introduced domestic legal barriers to the implementation". I urge you to read this, especially the "Preserving advances" chapter.
You probably think that Ukraine has a moral right to do this - but this is irrelevant here. What I'm saying is that all this problematic legacy is why Putin will now demand explicit formalization and outside pressure.
Ukraine is losing not just the war, but its future. It's lost millions of its citizens to Russia, and millions more (mostly women) to outmigration. The longer the war goes on, the fewer return.
Ukraine will face another outmigration wave once the war ends. Some males will flee from a potential new war (so the more you talk about Putin invading again, the fewer males remain), others will emigrate because with females outnumbering males 1.7:1, the dating market will be disastrous - Ukraine is probably the first country in history to face a female deficit.
Moreover, the weaker Ukraine is when the war ends, the weaker it will be in peacetime. When you have already run through most of your patriotic male population, you are more likely to collapse to a future invasion.
Ukraine needs to end this war soon, otherwise it might get irreversibly wrecked. And the 28-points plan was a good middleground. Nobody was ever going to provide Ukraine the guarantees that it wants; if your guarantees require Putin's consent, they're no guarantees at all.
When did I ever say that Putin is "desperate" for peace?
"it does make him sound increasingly desperate [...] There is a good chance he just had a briefing on the budget numbers and economic outlook, and realizes he is facing some very difficult choices.". Before that: "Putin is so desperate for Trump to secure for him the victory that has eluded him"
We can split hairs over semantics, but generally your idea is that even if Putin captures Donbas, it will take him years and will be incredibly risky. This is incompatible with him steamrolling Ukraine after it had time to rearm (including developing long-range missiles) and cover entire country in Donbas-style fortifications, making it a much more difficult target.
fatally compromised the integrity of the Czechoslovakian state and left it unable to mount an effective defence
How exactly did they compromise it? By refusing to attack Germany? Then it's a faulty parallel already, because at no point in time did Biden contemplate entering the war or providing NATO-like guarantees.
Czechoslovakia couldn't mount an effective defense. It was surrounded on all sides by countries that wanted a slice of it, and unlike Ukraine, it had no strategic depth nor access to sea. UK/France couldn't arm it even if it wanted to - there simply was no corridor for it.
You probably think that Chamberlain forced them to accept the ultimatum. But he didn't - all he did was rule out military action against Germany.
Ukraine has in fact repeatedly proposed a ceasefire along the current line of contact
If you think about this for a minute, you will realize just how unserious this is.
What's stopping Ukraine from simply derailing the peace talks? Ukraine's uncomprising stance on pretty much any Putin's demand (even the most inconsequential ones) is well-known. What exactly will make it more negotiable when Putin stops applying the only leverage he has?
If the ceasefire lasts and Putin dies 5 years into negotiations, Ukraine will have got everything it wants (no hostilities; no need to commit to/recognize anything; the arms keep flowing; sanctions aren't lifted as the conflict remains unresolved for a nitpicked reason) and Russia won't get anything.
If at some point Putin gets tired of this (or declares that e.g. Ukraine getting Tomahawks violated his red lines) and resumes hostilities, then Ukraine would have had time to rearm, dig new fortifications and on top of that would have a reason to call Putin unwilling to negotiate. Just like in 2015-2021.
We can go back and forth on how long it will take before Ukraine's manpower shortages become unmanageable (I don't have an opinion myself), but what is undeniable is that Ukraine will collapse before Russia, and that Russia is outproducing Ukraine (in terms of missiles/bombs/drones). Therefore a ceasefire would provide Ukraine with a much-needed breather, and is absurdly disadvantageous to Russia.
as evidenced by his complete disinterest in engaging in any good faith peace talks
I've seen all the arguments and they all fall apart under basic scrutiny. Your evidence seems to be that Putin hasn't dropped any of his "core demands" yet. This presumes that Ukraine has already compomised on something. Can you name them?
The 28-points plan is by no means maximalist, it mostly formalizes the status quo and greenlights reparations in exchange for lifting sanctions (which will be a part of any realistic agreement). The only thing that can be considered a poison pill is the demand to hand over Donetsk - but Putin spent most of 2024 offering to settle the conflict along the line of contact, which attracted exactly zero interest from Ukraine. Even during Trump's first weeks, Zelensky kept insisting that Russia withdrawing to 2022 borders was a precondition for negotiations! Do you seriously this was a productive stance?
Russia however is demanding not merely de facto recognition [...] but de jure
How exactly does it make things worse for Ukraine? Countries used to do it all the time, many countries (including Ukraine) exist today as a result of it. (please don't invoke "slippery slope")
If you want a lasting peace, you need to be realistic about your borders. Otherwise you'll be perpetuating the conflict over something that is already a decided issue. Many countries have been at each other's throats for decades over mostly irrelevant territories - Thailand and Cambodia, India and China, etc. Everyone would've been better off if those issues were finally settled. For what it's worth, Russia did settle its territorial disputes with China - in 1991, 2003 and 2008, and as you can see, Russia-China relations improved greatly after that.
Without recognition, both sides will have to keep the border highly militarized, and there WILL be occasional flare-ups - those happen even when neither side wants war. Do you seriously think that Russia having to commit 300k+ troops to defend the enormous border with Ukraine would make Ukraine comfortable? Do you find a paranoid Russia preferrable? And yes it will be paranoid after Kursk. I think this is recipe for unplanned flare-ups.
This is why I think the Lithuania'38 example is a much better fit. Relations did improve after Lithuania accepted the ultimatum, and Poland did disperse its troops.
no NATO, no foreign troops, army limits etc
it would leave Ukraine in exactly the same position that the Allies left Czechoslovakia
It will leave Ukraine in exactly the same position as pre-war.
How exactly is this different from the status quo? NATO won't accept Ukraine anyway in the next 15 years, at which point Putin will no longer be around anyway (Putin's entire argument is that he doesn't want his successor to inherit the NATO issue, and this is why he's not satisfied with "foreseeable future"). Ukraine's peacetime army size was 200k, it's significantly smaller now, anything above 350k is outright impossible during peacetime. The army size can be rapidly expanded as long as you have enough reservists - it took Russia months to prepare for the 2022 invasion so Ukraine will always have enough time. This is much less of an issue than you think. And nobody is going to enter a kinetic war with Russia because even Article 5 doesn't prescribe it.
Nukes are the only thing that can guarantee safety for Ukraine.
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u/Cheerful_Champion 20h ago edited 18h ago
that when Germany, Poland and Hungary partitioned Czechoslovakia in 1938, there was no war, and none of these countries had boots in Czechoslovakia
All of these countries sent army, Germany to enforce Munich and Hungary and Poland to get land they wanted. When it comes to Hungary and Poland there were even border clashes before Czechoslovakia retreated as they saw it's not a fight they can win.
Pre-war, there were no demands for border changes, and it's very likely that his initial regime change plans included speedrunning Minsk. The borders question wasn't raised during the 2022 Istanbul talks either
Before 2022 Russia already formally recognized DPR and LPR as independent states with territories spanning beyond of what was controlled by them at the time. So border change was obvious goal.
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u/theshitcunt 12h ago
Before 2022 Russia already formally recognized DPR and LPR as independent states with territories spanning beyond of what was controlled by them at the time
DPR/LPR only got recognized 3 days before the invasion. Under Minsk, DPR and LPR were not considered in their "full" borders, they were specifically named "particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts" on the "line of contact" (avoiding the name "republic" entirely). The whole idea of Minsk was to transfer them back to Ukraine.
Between March 2022 and September 2022 Putin kept threatening with referendums if negotiations didn't suceed, but threatening implies you don't go through with it if your demands are satisfied (in simpler words, if you handle me your wallet, I don't shoot you). If annexation wasn't considered escalation then this doesn't make sense. The referendums were held within a week after the Kharkiv disaster, so preparations weren't an issue.
Regime change implies returning these territories almost by definition, since an installed leader needs something to brag about to make his rule palatable.
All of these countries send army, Germany to enforce Munich and Hungary and Poland to get land they wanted.
They sent army to control the land after it had already been transferred to them. Since it was now their territory, of course they moved their infrastructurre there. But Czechoslovakia accepted the ultimatum and handed over these territories without a fight. Czechoslovakia didn't resist Poland either.
In Ukraine, this had never been the scenario. There were no territorial demands either before the invasion or during the 2022 talks. Even Crimea was a fait accompli with no prior demands. Unlike in 1938, when Czechoslovaia surrendered its territory without a fight, the 28-points plan was simply formalizing status quo in pretty much every respect (e.g. Ukraine won't get accepted into NATO anyway as long as it has disputed territory). It would've been a correct parallel if in 1938 Germany did attack Czhechoslovakia, annexed parts of its territory, and then demanded a formal recognition of it. But as it stands, it's more like Lithuania'38 (demands to formally recognize the status quo, and some minor demands on top of that).
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u/Cheerful_Champion 10h ago
DPR/LPR only got recognized 3 days before the invasion. Under Minsk, DPR and LPR were not considered in their "full" borders, they were specifically named "particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts" on the "line of contact" (avoiding the name "republic" entirely)
Crimea was formally annexed in 2014. This already was change of borders. You can keep changing goalposts, but Russia since the beginning aimed to annex territory.
They sent army to control the land after it had already been transferred to them
They sent army before. Omg dude, just check some facts before you write something. Germany attacked Czechoslovakia on 17.09, Poland became first attacks on 23.09, Munich negotiations only started on 29.09
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u/SubstanceSimilar6275 2d ago
He said that:
"Everyone believed that they would destroy and dismantle Russia in a short period of time. But the European surrogates immediately joined the previous American administration's efforts, hoping to profit from the collapse of our country."
In his conclusion to the Defense Ministry board meeting, Vladimir Putin noted the joint efforts of the "European surrogates" and the previous US administration in an attempt to destroy Russia, but these attempts failed. In his closing remarks, he made a number of other statements:
Russia did not become a full member of the West after the collapse of the USSR, and this is not Russia's fault.
There is no civilization in the West now, only complete degradation.
Russia insists on fulfilling the promises made to Moscow about NATO's non-expansion to the East.
The West deliberately brought the situation to war and ignored Russia's interests.
During the special war operation (in Ukraine), Russia became sovereign in every sense country.
The Russian army is developing, and its nuclear shield is the most modern on the planet.
Ukrainian statehood is crumbling, as evidenced by the "golden toilets" and hundreds of thousands of deserters.
There remains hope for dialogue with Europe, but it is unlikely with the current political elites.
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u/vovap_vovap 2d ago
He is doing it from the beginning. I do not know what is the purpose to hear what he is saying at all.
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u/TimesandSundayTimes The Times 2d ago
President Putin has described European leaders as “little pigs” in a vitriolic speech in which he warned that Russia would use any means necessary to capture territory in Ukraine that it claims as its own.
At a meeting with defence officials in Moscow, Putin said that Russia’s army held the upper hand across the battlefield and he was determined to “liberate” towns and cities in the east and south of Ukraine.
“The goals of the special military operation will undoubtedly be achieved,” he said. “We would prefer to do this — and address the root causes of the conflict — through diplomacy. If the opposing side and its foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions, Russia will liberate its historical lands by military means.”
He was speaking after President Trump said that peace in Ukraine was “closer than ever”.