Some ukarians would probably prefer to be on a couch too, even if it's West of the donbass, but not like they have a choice about martial law or conscription or the suspension of voting, but hey just some details right?
Finland inflicted a serious military victory over ussr, actually had a possibility of Allies joining in Winter War, and fought with ussr in 1941-1945. After all that it got its neutral position, not only by ceding some land, but actively resisting.
Meanwhile Baltic states lost their sovereignty for 50 years.
Finland had an offer from the USSR to swap some land for double the size elsewhere. After the "serious military victory over ussr" it lost that land plus some more for the total of 11% of its area, including its second largest city.
>and fought with ussr in 1941-1945
That is a very hilarious way to say that Finland allied with Nazis and got crushed again.
That’s inaccurate. Amongst NATO countries, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and Turkey have mandatory military service, and Croatia is bringing it back. There’s also non-NATO countries like Austria, Belarus, Cyprus, and Switzerland with mandatory military service.
Of those countries, Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania all have borders with Russia. The remainder - the majority of both the NATO countries and of the European states with service generally - do not have a border with Russia.
I've asked Gemini. Interestingly, they were offered over 2x as much territory in exchange for 1.5% of their land. Curiously, Wikipedia doesn't mention that in the Winter War article.
They lost 10-11% after WW2. Which deal was better?
"every male still needs to spend one year of their life"
Not 1 year. Gemini says it's 6-12 months, and several European countries not bordering the big bad fit that criteria.
Who exactly is after Austria, which has conscription, but has been neutral since basically the entire cold war?
Or the famously neutral Switzerland?
"No, it hasn’t."
Top Export Partners (2019)
The total value of Finnish goods exports in 2019 was approximately $72.84 billion.
Imagine the Taiwan copypasta being used against you.
> Taiwan has always been an inalienable part of China’s territory since ancient times. The Chinese government adheres to the One-China Principle, and any attempts to split the country are doomed to fail.
They didn't cede anything there. They continued to claim that Crimea was theirs, with support from the US. Less than a year before Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine was openly speaking of all options to retake Crimea which would obviously entail war with Russia. [1] All the while they were actively seeking to join NATO, and Biden was certainly implying it would happen soon.
This certainly contributed to Russia's decision to invade, as they likely saw the future as being a war on their terms, or a war on NATO's terms. And the narrative about aggressor would have likely played out similarly even if Ukraine/Biden had moved to invade Crimea, precisely because nothing was ever conceded.
Frankly, after the Epstein files, I welcome some fire and brimstone to clean things up a bit. (Of course, you probably think Epstein was a Russian agent)
What, specifically, do you think you're adding, here? The wild, incredible insight that at least "some" (whatever that weasel word means) folks in Ukraine probably wish they weren't fighting a war for the future of their country? Fucking astounding.