It also depends on if Xi is planning to take Primorsky Krai from Russia in the future or not.
When Russia celebrated its 160 year anniversary of taking Vladivostok from China, there were descenting voices in Beijing calling to reverse another so called "humiliation".
Countries are allied until they are not.
Putin signed a treaty to protect Ukraine, it didn't stop him from attacking them in 2014 or escalating that again last year.
"Every country protects in established order of the rights of its citizens living in another country, in accordance with commitments to documents of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and other universally recognized principles and norms of international law, agreements within the Commonwealth of Independent States."
Ukraine stopped following the contents of that treaty after the US supported Maidan coup.
Ukraine stopped following the contents of that treaty after the US supported Maidan coup.
Sounds like the Ukrainian people should have harbored a lot of resentment against the US for interfering with their democratic process, if true. Was that the case?
In any event, what concern was this of Russia's? Russia has problems of its own, and for a nuclear-armed nation, external threats are a long way down the list. Maybe they should worry more about how to improve their own country and less about how to wreck everybody else's.
"Sounds like the Ukrainian people should have harbored a lot of resentment against the US for interfering with their democratic process, if true. Was that the case?"
Of-course, why did you think Donetsk and Luhansk regions held secession referendums in 2014 ?
"Maybe they should worry more about how to improve their own country and less about how to wreck everybody else's."
Why would Russia not interfere in their immediate neighbourhood in a nation filled with a large number of Russian ethnic people who were turned into second class pariahs thanks to US interference ?
Also..you must be joking about wrecking? Maybe the US should follow that advice first ? Pot/Kettle ? Look at Libya - a nation that used to have free healthcare, electricity and subsidized housing. Now brought to the stone age - famine and extreme poverty - all thanks to the manoeuvrings of the US statement department and NATO bombings.
> Of-course, why did you think Donetsk and Luhansk regions held secession referendums in 2014 ?
Because there were Russian soldiers holding a gun to their back forcing it.
Igor Girkin who was a FSB officer and one of the former leaders of the DPR or LPR armies recently admitted it was mostly Russians and wasn’t really a civil war.
> Why would Russia not interfere in their immediate neighbourhood in a nation filled with a large number of Russian ethnic people who were turned into second class pariahs thanks to US interference ?
Because this never happened, this is a persistent myth spouted by people like Putin to justify the rape and torture of Ukraine.
"Because this never happened, this is a persistent myth spouted by people like Putin to justify the rape and torture of Ukraine."
A "myth" recorded in Ukraine's laws by passing bills like 5670-d that effectively made the Russian language illegal in most aspects of public life. Doing so in a multi-ethnic nation in any other part of the world would have raised howls of fascism and anti-democracy by the US mass media and state dept and extensive condemnations in the UN. But hey, its Ukraine - a promised NATO partner - who cares about the folks affected ?
> A "myth" recorded in Ukraine's laws by passing bills like 5670-d that effectively made the Russian language illegal in most aspects of public life. Doing so in a multi-ethnic nation in any other part of the world would have raised howls of fascism and anti-democracy by the US mass media and state dept and extensive condemnations in the UN. But hey, its Ukraine - a promised NATO partner - who cares about the folks affected ?
That law is merely about recording the offical language of the country as being Ukrainian, and having it be used, an attempt to preserve the national identity of Ukraine, as _Ukrainian_ and not as _Russian_.
This desperate attempt to look oppressed by Russia is pathetic at this point.
"This desperate attempt to look oppressed by Russia is pathetic at this point."
This desperate attempt to deflect the actual and real ramifications of the law which made Russians pariahs in their communities is utterly laughable. Maybe you should take some time to investigate yourself. No Russian in theatres, no Russian on documents, No Russian film dubbings, be careful talking Rusian or get beat up or killed - spend some time talking to folks from Donbass and understand the kind of oppression they faced, before you call oppression as pathetic.
> spend some time talking to folks from Donbass and understand the kind of oppression they faced, before you call oppression as pathetic.
I don’t need to speak to FSB and GRU agents to know what the Russian intelligence community is trying to push as the narrative in Ukraine thanks.
If they think that the main language of the country they are in being the offical language of the area then perhaps they should move to a country where that language is the offical language.
But I don’t expect that to happen because Russians are forever imagining oppression and have forever something to gripe about.
Well, it certainly seems their instincts to separate themselves from Russia and Russian culture and seek greater alignment with the West were correct. One side has a future, the other is a gas station with nukes, run by mobsters (although it could be argued that I'm misspelling 'monsters' here.)
Who decides who are the mobsters anyways ? Invading and occupying sovereign nations and stealing resources from them doesn't make the US a mobster apparently. Human rights and sovereignty is only grandiosely trumpeted when it is in the favour of the US.
> Human rights and sovereignty is only grandiosely trumpeted when it is in the favour of the US.
I’m pretty sure there was endless articles about the human rights situation in most countries the us invaded and also massive protests so this is patently false.
Bills like 5670-d that effectively made the Russian language illegal in most aspects of public life.
Nope, that's not what it does. It really not helpful to post opinion-piece fodder like this -- which you obviously haven't made even minimal effort to fact-check.
All those "coups" were directly followed by elections, elections even the donbas participated and was thus represented in Ukraine assembly, until Russia waltzed on. And all the western civilization mimicry will not undo what happened on the ground. Russia is as shameless a imperial power in its day to day, as the US was at its darkest hours (Vietnam, Iraq)
Yeah, with a truckload of support and sponsorship from Victoria Nuland - the shining [Coup Lady] of the US state department - who also picked the post coup leaders.
She wasn't just involved in Ukraine. Was involved in Libya as well - gleefully cheering on when Gadaffi and his grandsons were killed one by one by NATO forces.
> Yeah, with a truckload of support and sponsorship from Victoria Nuland - the shining [Coup Lady] of the US state department - who also picked the post coup leaders.
You got any evidence of this that doesn’t stink of Russian propaganda?.
My favorite part was when Victoria Nuland poisoned Yuschenko with dioxin and turned him into an orange version of the Yellow Bastard from Sin City, years before orange skin became en vogue in American political circles. Also, there was that time when Nuland went on a hunting "vacation" in Donbas and bagged a Boeing, then hotfooted it across the Russian border with an innocent twinkle in her eye. And don't forget the time Nuland massacred dozens of protesters who objected to Yanukovych placing loyalty to Moscow over loyalty to his own country.
She wasn't just involved in Ukraine. Was involved in Libya as well
Your basic problem here is that you're confusing "trying to get involved" with "actually being involved and affecting events in a significant way".
In short, the idea that Nuland's shenanigans did anything to move the needle on the ground is utter BS -- fodder for leftwing opinion websites in some Western countries, but not something that anybody in Ukraine takes seriously.
When Russia celebrated its 160 year anniversary of taking Vladivostok from China, there were descenting voices in Beijing calling to reverse another so called "humiliation".
Countries are allied until they are not.
Putin signed a treaty to protect Ukraine, it didn't stop him from attacking them in 2014 or escalating that again last year.