They have been on and off since 2008. Zelensky said in a meeting with Boris Johnson in 2020 that NATO needed to offer a Membership Action Plan to bring Ukraine into the alliance, the 2021 NATO Summit committed to working towards a MAP, and Zelensky pressed Biden to discuss a timetable for Ukraine to be admitted to NATO and what the US’s position on bringing them into the alliance was in September.
Sure, a single random Barry mention versus non stop mentions of trump to the extent that a mod had to talk about it today - ok goop
Hells bells, you are correct. Just looked it up, and they did apply. I stand corrected on that count.
Precisely, with great help from the DNCC machine. Now that the RNCC has their new training video 2000mules, it will be a different outcome. I’ve said this many times before, it takes the republicans a little longer to learn from the democrats but eventually they learn from them.
I’d prefer a sniper shot between Putin’s beady soulless eyes. Too many innocent people have already died in that region.
Beijing first. Solves two problems at once - gets Xi and eliminates one of the worst offenders in Carbon emissions leading to global warming. Win Win
Well that's dated today. That would be a wee tardy, but they did commence the process a while back. Apparently in the wake of Crimea.
Perhaps you should look into it? Ukraine HAS considered a request to join NATO. They and Georgia both put forth plans in 2008. Russia’s response to this in 2008 was to invade Georgia in the 5 days war. Russia didn’t “invade” Ukraine at that time, but they were successfully able to achieve regime change. So both Georgia and Ukraine’s plans to apply, were quashed by Russian actions to disrupt them. With this regime change there was a Putin puppet in Ukraine (with Paul Manafort as it’s right hand man!), which put them under Russian sphere of influence, until 2014 when that crooked regime was ousted by the Ukrainian people. Im not aware of any discussion in ‘15 or ‘16 in the immediate aftermath of their new government. It should go without saying, with Trump in the U.S. this was a moot point from ‘17-‘20. The pretext for this invasion is that Ukraine was again going to press for NATO membership. President Zelensky has openly discussed this including right up to the invasion. Not a formal application mind you, more or less asking if the door was open for them.
Yep. Through today. Now there are reasons they can’t just be admitted, but they were working towards it.
Yeah, but deep down, complete annihilation feels a little better. I'm kidding of course, but such is the level of disgust I'm feeling. Same time, this will be his downfall.
Sometimes these guys seem badly misguided (as far as hacktivism). Sometimes they do great work. This is no doubt the greatest type of honorable work any hacker could do right now.
Wow. A group of 13 soldiers were defending an island off the coast of Odesa and this is the last recording from that island. Not sure if we can keep the video on here due to language (and I'll post the CNN video rather than the raw footage translated as it already is censored), but it is really worth it:
It really seems like this is a gross miscalculation by Putin. In the days of infinite video and audio and media these types of anecdotes go viral and affect public opinion. Putin will be a world pariah for as long as he rules now. It will likely mobilize the world against him. It squashes the argument that NATO is obsolete and will likely renew interest in NATO membership and increase NATO military presence in these countries. Ultimately if we all survive this it may make the world a better place, at least for a while. It makes autocrats look less attractive. It brings the free world closer together. If it turns out badly for Putin China may think twice about doing the same thing with Taiwan or other territories.
This is where things could really get ugly fast here in the US. But the gloves are off and I suspect we will be much more likely to respond in kind.