easy to be neutral when you are surrounded by only NATO countries haha
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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"look at me, im austria, and i didnt got fucked last time russia invaded europe, im gonna stay out of this"
Your comment contains several historical inaccuracies and simplifications:
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Modern Austria as a state did not exist during the Napoleonic Wars, when Russia participated in anti-French coalitions. The Austrian Empire was then an active participant in the events.
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During World War II, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938 (the Anschluss) and effectively became part of the German state until 1945.
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The term "Russia invaded Europe" is an oversimplification. The Russian Empire and the USSR participated in pan-European conflicts, but usually as part of coalitions and with specific political goals.
A more accurate historical position could reflect:
- Neutral status of Austria after 1955
- Austria's participation in pan-European institutions
- The complex history of relations between the Russian/Soviet state and European countries
I recommend avoiding simplistic interpretations of complex historical processes and interstate relations.
Also the Russian feudal empire is hardly similar to the current Russian capitalist state, which had an 70-year socialist state sandwiched in between.
theres nothing complex about it. russians came and stole everything that wasnt nailed down. everyone on lemmy can fuck their russia/china bootlicking ideologies. i dont care about your idealistic and pc history storytelling bs.
austria wants to be the next switzland, basicly a free "i dont give a fuck" card.
The phrase "Russians came and stole everything" is a harmful generalization attributing collective guilt to the entire nation.
The comment does not specify either a time frame or specific historical events, which makes an assessment impossible. The text is clearly ideological in nature, not historical, which makes it difficult to evaluate it objectively.
Relations between countries (including Russia, China, Austria, and others) are complex multidimensional processes that cannot be reduced to simplistic images of "victims" and "aggressors."
Wow there’s some weird pro-Russian aggression people in this comment section.
.ml is known for this tbf I wont draw the ire of the mods here but many .ml users think that the Russian federation is analogous to the USSR in the ""fight against imperialism""
many .ml users think that the Russian federation is analogous to the USSR
Well this is just a straight up lie, but a lot of bad faith people love to repeat it
I suppose if you have no idea why, you might say the first thing that pops into your head, and I’ve learned that this is the first thing that pops into most people’s heads. But to say we’re “pro-Russian” is to exaggerate, and to say we’re confusing it with the USSR is just ridiculous. Previously.
I think that's pretty misleading. But anyways, if you want your social media to just parrot western talking points why not stay on reddit?
Hey, I’m anti violence regardless of who is the perpetrator. I hate it when Russia invades a country and starts a war. I hate it when Israel invades a country and starts a war. And yes, I also very much hate it when the US invades a country and starts a war. I don’t care which country starts and whether it’s eastern or western or capitalist or communist. I just hate violence.
I hate it when Russia invades a country and starts a war.
NATO Chief Admits NATO Expansion Was Key to Russian Invasion of Ukraine
So? What’s your point? I still hate when ANYONE invades a country and starts a war. Someone not signing a treaty is in my eyes nowhere near grounds enough to start a war. Heck, if Russia wanted to be closer to Ukraine so bad they could have asked them if they want to join BRICS. It’s the voluntary bit that is important to me.
The article addresses this:
Putin made one last attempt at diplomacy at the end of 2021, tabling a draft U.S.-NATO Security Agreement to forestall war. The core of the draft agreement was an end of NATO enlargement and removal of U.S. missiles near Russia. Russia’s security concerns were valid and the basis for negotiations. Yet Biden flatly rejected negotiations out of a combination of arrogance, hawkishness, and profound miscalculation. NATO maintained its position that NATO would not negotiate with Russia regarding NATO enlargement, that in effect, NATO enlargement was none of Russia’s business.
The continuing U.S. obsession with NATO enlargement is profoundly irresponsible and hypocritical. The U.S. would object—by means of war, if needed—to being encircled by Russian or Chinese military bases in the Western Hemisphere, a point the U.S. has made since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Yet the U.S. is blind and deaf to the legitimate security concerns of other countries.
So, yes, Putin went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to Russia’s border. Ukraine is being destroyed by U.S. arrogance, proving again Henry Kissinger’s adage that to be America’s enemy is dangerous, while to be its friend is fatal. The Ukraine War will end when the U.S. acknowledges a simple truth: NATO enlargement to Ukraine means perpetual war and Ukraine’s destruction. Ukraine’s neutrality could have avoided the war, and remains the key to peace.
As someone who claims to hate violence and war, you should pay special attention to the last sentence there. The war didn't even need to happen in the first place and could have been avoided entirely if Ukraine had remained neutral. BRICS is not a military alliance, NATO definitely is. Furthermore, not long after the war started, a peace agreement between the two warring parties was deliberately sabotaged by Western powers. The West wanted to keep the war going:
How Britain Sabotaged Ukraine Peace
On April 16th, Foreign Affairs published an investigation, documenting in forensic detail how in May 2022 Kiev was a signature away from a peace deal with Russia “that would have ended the war and provided Ukraine with multilateral security guarantees,” which was scuppered by Western powers.
So if I read that right Britain is blamed for Ukraine not signing the deal because they said they’d still keep on supporting Ukraine if they continue the war? Seems like the influence of Britain is very much overstated here. You sent a link to an article that has a single other article as its source. From that source article I bring you this:
Still, the claim that the West forced Ukraine to back out of the talks with Russia is baseless. It suggests that Kyiv had no say in the matter. True, the West's offers of support must have strengthened Zelensky's resolve, and the lack of Western enthusiasm does seem to have dampened his interest in diplomacy. Ultimately, however, in his discussions with Western leaders, Zelensky did not prioritize the pursuit of diplomacy with Russia to end the war.
As far as I can find the list of Russia’s demands were far from reasonable at the time. Here are a few of them:
- Making Russian equal to Ukrainian as joint official languages;
- Giving Russia and China absolute power to decide how Ukraine is to deal with any future armed conflict in Ukraine;
- Repealing a law Ukraine passed in 2014 that makes it illegal to use Swastikas and Soviet symbols and makes it illegal to deny the holocaust;
- Strong limits on Ukraine military size and abilities. PDF by the Institute of War nonprofit research group - this information is also corroborated by the original foreign affairs source your article is summarizing, this is just a neater list to read through.
Meanwhile Russia made no concessions regarding giving back any of the land they were illegally occupying. Given the above I understand why the deal wasn’t signed at the time. I suspect all that signing that would have done is lead to a revolution in Ukraine to topple the government that signed away their county. I don’t think signing that would have avoided further bloodshed.
The West sinking the peace agreement is widely known. This has been confirmed by both Israeli and Turkish mediators. Also, the Ukrainians themselves confirm that neutrality was the main point and that anything else was merely "cosmetic".
Sabotage of the Istanbul Peace Agreement
The Israeli and Turkish mediators confirmed that Ukraine and Russia were both eager to make a compromise to end the war before the US and the UK intervened to prevent peace from breaking out.
Zelensky had contacted former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to mediate the peace negotiations with Moscow. Bennett noted that Putin was willing to make “huge concessions” if Ukraine would restore its neutrality to end NATO expansion. Zelensky accepted this condition and “both sides very much wanted a ceasefire”. However, Bennett argued that the US and UK then intervened and “blocked” the peace agreement as they favoured a long war. With a powerful Ukrainian military at its disposal, the West rejected the Istanbul peace agreement and there was a “decision by the West to keep striking Putin” instead of pursuing peace.[7]
The Turkish negotiators reached the same conclusion: Russia and Ukraine agreed to resolve the conflict by restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, but NATO decided to fight Russia with Ukrainians as a proxy. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu argued some NATO states wanted to extend the war to bleed Russia:
“After the talks in Istanbul, we did not think that the war would take this long.… But following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, I had the impression that there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue—let the war continue and Russia gets weaker. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine”.[8]
Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s political party, confirmed that Zelensky was ready to sign the peace agreement before the US intervened:
“This war is not between Russia and Ukraine, it is a war between Russia and the West. By supporting Ukraine, the United States and some countries in Europe are beginning a process of prolonging this war. What we want is an end to this war. Someone is trying not to end the war. The U.S. sees the prolongation of the war as its interest”.[9]
Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Chalyi, who participated in peace talks with Russia, confirms Putin “tried everything” to reach a peace agreement and they were able “to find a very real compromise”.[10] Davyd Arakhamia, a Ukrainian parliamentary representative and head of Zelensky’s political party, argued Russia’s key demand was Ukrainian neutrality: “They were ready to end the war if we, like Finland once did, would accept neutrality and pledge not to join NATO. In fact, that was the main point. All the rest are cosmetic and political ‘additions’”.[11] Oleksiy Arestovych, the former advisor of Zelensky, also confirmed that Russia was mainly preoccupied with restoring Ukraine’s neutrality.
The "political compass" meme is a bourgeois oversimplification that attempts to reduce the complex, scientific analysis of class struggle to a two-dimensional graph.
It serves to obfuscate the true nature of political ideology, which is defined not by abstract "libertarian" or "authoritarian" labels, but by one's relationship to the means of production and their stance on the dictatorship of the proletariat.
By placing Marxism-Leninism in the so-called "authoritarian left" quadrant, it slanders the revolutionary and democratic essence of the vanguard party and the necessary period of socialist construction, which is the highest form of democracy for the working class.
This framework is idealist and anti-dialectical, designed to discredit the scientific and proven path of socialist revolution by equating it with reactionary fascism.
This isn't the political compass, though. The ML take is in the upper right, it has nothing to do with the liberal political compass.
Case in point:
You guys should just go spread your lies on reddit like before and leave the rest of us alone. Don't come here to astroturf please.
Another case in point:
& me disagreeing with something isnt astroturfing.
me disagreeing with something isnt astroturfing
Because that's not what you're actually doing here. None of your comments show you "disagreeing" with anything.
I’m noticing some specific accounts doing it. There have to be some alts or lurkers because the downvotes don’t match the ones posting obvious lies.
Let it be clear that "neutrality" just means helping to maintain the settler-colony entity occupying Palestine and capitulating to their Western siblings no-problem while not saying much publicly about the U.S. State Department list of definitely-ontologically-bad-countries-and-resistance-groups list.
Yes, this too applies to Switzerland, Andorra, Ireland, Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco and so on.
~~Australia just classified Iran as terrorists because Israel told them to.~~
i thought this was about Austria lol. Also "[Euroanglo-Zionazi] told them to" is just code for US telling them to do so. The attack was obviously a psyop that allowed headlines like "Why Iran Hit Australia" and "Revelations Iran was behind antisemitic attacks show IRGC tentacles have reached Australia" to churn out. Clear as day consent manufacturing to justify yet another imminent bombing campaign on Iran.
My bad I'm misreading the comment chain
I feel like EU countries who are neutral are going to run into issues when the EU creates a union military.
Austria is doing the right thing. I hope America leaves/dissolves NATO soon so that we can make peace with Russia.
Pretty sure if the US leaves NATO, they’ll find a way to bring Ukraine in.
If the US left NATO it would cease to exist. It's a protection racket, and one without a real threat at that. It was always intended as a red scare tactic (operation gladio for example) and to isolate the USSR, which no longer exists, by expanding US military influence across Europe. NATO has never been about european defense and it would be a solution in search of a cause without the US.
If us left Nato it would cease to exist yes. But let's be clear that America has benefitted from Nato as well with European troops helping American troops. As well as helping with logistics. America has even invoked article 5 after september 11, and Nato countries complied.
Saving this comment to see if/when that happens and Russia finds another excuse, your viewpoint has changed.