Yesterday I posted a bit about how Trump actually managed to make the right call when it comes to Russian aggression during the ongoing war in Ukraine. He said that in fact Russia has been attacking Ukraine's allies since 2022 and I spent most the post demonstrating how this was the case.

My final thought was that basically even an idiot gets it right occasionally!

The post prompted the following interesting comment by @LiaRio (of whom I am a big fan) in reference to what I had written:

And of course Europe, Ukraine and US were totally innocent parties, absolutely no poking, hacking, sabotaging or harassing took place

Furthermore, his response prompted me to reply and my answer proved to be longer than even I imagined and I thought that it was worth sharing in full. I have adjusted it very slightly to make it more generally relevant rather addressed to an individual as it was originally written.

So here it is...

You may recall before the War started I actually had some sympathy for Putin’s view. My suggestion that Ukraine probably should be neutral, but safeguarded by both Russia and Nato, so that in the event of a Russian attack then it is an Article 5 situation while not being a member of Nato, and likewise if the West were to further encroach into ex-Soviet territory then it justifies a Russian move against the West. [In any agreement] Russia would also have to accept the realpolitik of the situation in the Baltic States who were now firmly established in both the EU and Nato.

My view actually irked my father-in-law and retrospectively, while my suggestion was logical, it did ignore the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and that above all means that his point was more than valid, but also right!

The [fact is that the] West, led by American arrogant expansionism has encroached and moved East through Nato, which is largely a defensive alliance (the Serbs would beg to differ after the War of 1999). The concept of a multi-polar world in itself is not wrong, but it begs the question as to why the countries of Central Europe (and now Scandinavia too) rushed to join the West and come under Nato’s umbrella.

Take Poland for example, historically it has described itself as the “Christ among the Nations” - crucified between two criminals (the poet Mickiewicz), but here and now in 2026, just like the Biblical Metaphor, one of the criminals has now been rehabilitated, even if there is an element of Germany First coming out of Berlin (but don’t all Nation States do that?). However, probably more than any other country, Poland has benefited from the improvement in infrastructure provided by the EU and largely bankrolled by Germany. Germany, for its part, got better access to “Eastern” Markets (never call Poles “East Europeans!”) through improved road and rail networks, but the payback was that Poland got better roads and railways and modernised train stations among other things.

Had Russia followed a similar path of rehabilitation, then who knows?

One of the saddest things is that after the Smolensk air crash in 2010 Putin seemed initially to be making all the right noises, as he did after 9/11.

Had there been a sense of Russian benign benevolence then it could have been different, although Poles understandably have a deep lasting memory. While in the period 1939-45 Nazi Germany did far worse than Russia ever did, Germany has set itself on a different path (although the rise of the AfD is of concern), but sadly Russia hasn’t and that is why the peoples of Central Europe remember the Russian invasion of reborn Poland in 1920-21 (only to be saved by “The Miracle of on the Vistula”, the Russian invasion of 1939, two weeks after the German invasion, Katyn, the crushing of Hungary in 1956, the suppression of the Prague Spring of 1968, the more controversial actions of Jaruzelski in the early 1980s (did he put down Solidarity to save Poland from a Soviet action, or did he act to save his own skin - the jury is still out on that one), the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, instigated by the Kremlin. And while you may argue that this was during the Soviet era, it is a pattern that has continued into modernity, just ask the people of Chechnya, Georgia, and now Ukraine - Bucha and Mariupol being the obvious (but far from only) examples.

I totally agree that your point is absolutely valid, but one side’s bad behaviour does not justify - other than in the case of self-defence - bad behaviour on the other side - see what I wrote [a couple of days ago], about the IDF and Gaza.

And there you have it.

As always stay safe and well my friends