in reality, treaties are little better and verbal promises and can also be broken. US walked away from ABN, INF and unilaterally scrapped JCPOA too.

unfortunately, the US pushed too far this time. i'm not sure whether they did so purposely to trigger this war ignoring the humanitarian aspects as ultimately they ultimately benefit from the war; or whether they really became so naive as to ignore the geopolitics. given how great they are at playing the big game, it seems the first is more likely.

the military adviser to zelenskyy also understands the situation well and went into the war situation on belief that ukraine would win and they would join NATO after winning the war. however, he assumed that he would get more support from NATO than NATO would give in reality and having said that it was impossible for Ukraine to be neutral, (it would have to join NATO or stay in Russia's orbit), I wonder how he sees things now that NATO membership is off the cards?

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So you are alleging the US and UA might have wanted this war or at the minimum caused it somehow unconsciously.

Wow.

"NATO estimates that up to 15,000 Russian troops have been killed since the Kremlin’s attack on Ukraine began last month, with as many as 40,000 dead, wounded, taken prisoner or missing."

Hard to believe, 20% of the invading Russian force out of action in the first three weeks, time will tell.

The bodies of Russian soldiers strewn across the landscape are becoming a problem as temperatures rise above freezing.
In his nightly video address on Saturday, Vitaly Kim, the Mykolaiv region's governor, called on local residents to help collect the Russian corpses and put them in bags, as temperatures rise to above freezing. "We're not beasts, are we?" he implored residents, who have already lost so many of their own in this war.

RU warned that it crossed their redlines and demonstrated so with the invasion of Georgia, so I think it should have been clear to the US that continuing on their path would have ultimately led to war also in ukraine. not causing it unconsciously, but consciously. even on the US side, they understand also that they would never accept this the other way around (see cuba missile crisis and Monroe Doctrine).

As for UA, I already posted the interview with the military adviser to zelenskyy who is on record having said that with a probability of 99.9%, the price for joining NATO will be a full scale war with russia and that was preferable to the alternative to slow absorption by russia over 10-12 years. he goes on to predict largely what happened and the timing.

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The JCPOA is not a treaty but an agreement between several countries and is not a signed document.

The other two treaties had withdrawal conditions that the US complied with, they did not "break" the treaties.

Ukraine did not enter "into the war situation on the belief that Ukraine would win", they were invaded so had no choice.

There was no realistic path for UA into NATO any time soon. Hence there was zero threat to Russia. There was no aggression from UA towards RU. UA of course since 2014 has become more Western leaning, but that is their choice, not the West absorbing them. And this is the problem (also with Mearsheimer) - Russia simply did this because they did not like the development of UA. Putin is convinced that UA is not a country. That is the issue.

Would you please explain what you mean by "the US continuing on their path"?

The last time an East European country joined NATO was in 2004, eighteen years ago so how is that "continuing"?

I know Ukraine has several times requested EU and NATO membership but that was their "continuing" action, not the US.

UA was on the way to becoming a pro-US country. they might not be a NATO country, but they are becoming a NATO-lite country: no Article 5 protection, but lots of weapons being supplied by NATO and training.

Russia probably also didn't look favourably on the ousting of the elected pro-Russian President during the Maidan revolution. The CIA is known for its operations in overthrowing governments to install their own US-friendly ones, so no surprises if the US was active in formenting the demonstrations and installing a pro-US government.

But I agree, the people of UA (at least some proportion of them) though I'm not sure whether they would have wanted it enough to have gone to war over it. Sadly, for them, they didn't get to vote on it but have to live with the choices/moves of the main players: UA, RU and US.

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Not sure where I picked this up, but apparently in 2014 before the Russian takeover of Crimea and its meddling in the Donbas, only a third of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO. That has changed since. You wonder why. And now look at Finland and Sweden today.

"have to live with the choices/moves of the main players", actually they are not living but being murdered by the thousand.

US foreign policy is naive to the extreme, so I think it a mix of both. What is happening now is a neo con's wet dream. Destableize both the EU and Russia, the tightrope walk is not to destabilize too much. Personally I believe that the US is not our friend and will happily throw us under a bus should push come to shove.

While not perfect, the US is the best friend we have. And on what planet is it in the US interest to weaken the EU?

Wow, your frequent knee-jerk conspiracy posts really are now getting to the point of being little more than non-sensical trash. The US, for all its faults, is the EU's staunchest and most powerful ally within this world.

Are you now becoming another classic example of an EF poster than doesn't even live in Switzerland yet still uses this forum as their outlet for their anxiety?

Who needs enemies with friends like that. The Us would very much love a Europe dependent on US gas for one. They would like that so much that I would not put it past them to find means and ways to hinder and stop Europe buying gas from Russia.

US interest in not in weakening EU, it's in weakening Russia.

EU is just a tool.

And tool rhymes with?

and if you look to the details, that vote is split between the russian speaking east and crimea and the rest of ukraine.

I think the US is interested in maintaining its global dominance and a unipolar world with the US leading.

Seeing the events in Ukraine, where even in our own backyard, Europe is mostly sidelined with the US in the lead, it is still very much the case.

If we move to a multi-polar world with regional powers in Americas, Asia and Europe, it is far from clear that the EU would be the dominant power in Europe. Russia's incompetence has dented its play for the role with their huge army appearing less menacing after their failures and their ploy to influence Europe economically through energy policy now also under attack.

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America only wants to build back better.

You are watching Russia Today too much. You have to switch the channels from time to time.