Kevin Yin's Blog #2

It is both predictable and unpredictable of this happening war between Russia and Ukraine. To analyze the current situation, we have to split them with several groups: NATO, Russia, Ukraine, and America. On Jan 22nd, as Putin announced the independence of the East part of Ukraine, which was deemed as an inappropriate and disrespectful action on international society, he got criticized and disappointed by many leaders around the world. I would like to say that America and several countries in NATO have NO rights to censure Putin for doing that.

I want to use a metaphor here to describe what happened in these years. NATO expanded their territory five times since 1952, currently holding Georgia in their space, which is quite next to Russia. However, Russia is never a member of NATO, and as people all know, Russia has been hostile towards America and many other countries for many years. (It might be way too exaggerated, but anyways Russia stood on the opposite side with lots of western countries.) Now, what happened between Ukraine and Russia was like your neighbor kept drilling on the wall next to your room for quite a long time, and you tried to negotiate with your neighbor several times, which didn’t work at all. Finally, you couldn’t stand it anymore, and you hit your neighbor. He started crying “why do you bully me? You are so rude, you should get punished!” That is exactly what is going on now. However, the slight difference here is that the people who drilled in the neighbor's room were controlled by other people. In this case, “other people” refers to America. Why do they all want Ukraine to join NATO? Well, we can say that Ukraine is a small country, and they want to seek help from such a giant organization. However, we all know that Ukraine is almost bounded by Russia. If Ukraine joins NATO, it cannot be even clearer what is going to happen. Russia cannot accept the opposite forces putting lots of army in their boundary. Consequently, Russia is kind of “forced” to do so. I don’t think the event is just because Putin wants to retrieve the “Soviet Union space”. I would say if he really desires greater territory, he would do the same thing in 2014, when the Crimea War emerged.

The different groups here have diverse standpoint. Ukrainian people are poor. Based on humanitarianism, I would only feel sorry for those common people, but the governments here are disgusting. Why does Putin have to make such an announcement in a rush? Because once Ukraine joins NATO, Russia cannot say anything to Ukraine anymore, even if NATO puts weapons and army near Russia. Currently, Russia puts their military force on the alert. If the pressure from Europe, the U.S., and NATO keeps growing, I am quite afraid of the war happening. The common people are really just the victims of the international relationship argument. 

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