Quote Originally Posted by frogmiller View Post
Poland and other countries that left the Soviet Union don?t have the same issues.

If another party was in place which was more sympathetic to the thoughts of Moscow and an election was held then the people could decide no?

There is no alternative now!

The orange uprising was sponsored by who?

I don't have a detailed grasp of Russian-Ukranian history, as I suspect neither do you, but my understanding is that bottom line Ukrain has a long border with Ukraine and it has historical significance as a key gateway for Western troops to enter Russia. Russia is very guarded against the west seducing and using Ukraine as this gateway for invasion, although there hasn't really been any evidence of intention there. Recent escalations in 2009 and 2014 has escalated a mutual hostility between the 2 countries, but the important thing for me is that a free and fair election ran and Ukraine subsequently wanted to join the fellow former USSR countries in gaining NATO membership. Clealy this irked Russia - appearing to maintain that it thought that Ukrainse was planning to overthrow Russia, although there was very little evidence of any such plans other than the minority paramilitary nutjobs that exist in most states with historical greviences and want to keep historical fights raging.

Significantly, I suspect that Russia knows that if Ukraine joins NATO, then any such territorial escalation will have to be met with opposition from all NATO members, thereby ruling out a manouvre that Russia clearly wants. The worrying thing for me is what lays beyond this, and whether there are further plans, from Putin or people beyond him, to revive their former glorious empire.

Would I want to fight for Ukraine? If I was a Ukranian citizen and was in the country in these circumstances, I suspect I would. Do I want UK forces on the ground out there? No of course not, but the armed forces exist for a specific reason, and responding to escalations such as an invasion of a sovereign country is just as relevent and worthy now as it was in 1939. The Russian state have been the activators in the conflict, and only their invasion is the reason for their war - to blame the Ukraine for wanting to gain NATO membership, granted to it's former USSR neighbours, doesn't wash for me.