Astro Hacker News - US floated idea of Ukraine swapping land for NATO membership, Zelensky says

daly |next [-]

Ukraine had a U.S. and Europe guarantee of security if they would give up their nuclear assets.

Lapel2742 |root |parent [-]

> Ukraine had a U.S. and Europe guarantee of security if they would give up their nuclear assets.

Only if you define "Europe" as UK. The Budapest Memorandum was signed by the USA, the UK, Russia and Ukraine.

AnimalMuppet |root |parent [-]

All right, but Ukraine might still be a bit skeptical of any "security guarantees" that anyone offers them in exchange for their land. And rightly so.

yepyoukno |next |previous [-]

The quiet part nobody is saying out loud, Donbas contains a nuclear insulated fortress under a mountain. It was built by Russia long ago, and is impenetrable by any weapons technology available to mankind (except maybe time or treachery.) After the Cold War split the nuclear reactor it contains was looted and dismantled. If it could be brought online in theory a resistance army could occupy the fortress and run a protected command center for an endless war.

Militarily it is arguably the most valuable land Ukraine has, after its populated cities of course.

sjdh76 |root |parent [-]

Like with a Princess from Alderaan leading the rebel forces?

yepyoukno |root |parent [-]

Like a command center conventional weapons cannot kill. Russia isn’t afraid of Ukraine, Russia is afraid of someone who can fck with them and fck with them and fck with them so many ways so many hows they cannot live their lives without remembering being fcked with this way.

These are the only sides of course. Everyone has many reasons for what they are doing.

Some are doing what they are doing for a kind of power that is like God over the other one. Can you tell which side is which?

What is happening is not a part of the worlds arm chair entertainment, there is a question of power and how power works, and after we all agree, we can go back to shopping and and beer with friends and things.

sjdh76 |root |parent [-]

The whole world can see through history what Philosophy of Power that region of the world has produced and its results.

yepyoukno |root |parent [-]

Sadly, none see through the lens of history.

If you mean, as “the space in between”, every buffer has served its point of contention.

AnimalMuppet |previous [-]

So if there was a concrete proposal, Ukraine would at least consider it.

Swap the land that they no longer have anyway, for NATO membership, with the defense guarantee so they don't have to worry about Russia coming back against them in five years (or five weeks). I can see why that would make sense to them.

I can see that it would not please Putin - NATO membership is one of the things that he has considered unacceptable. But if it happened anyway, what would he do? My hope is that he would spin it to his people as a successful ending to his "special military" whatever. My fear is that he would immediately attack and put NATO to the test to see if the mutual defense commitment was real.