All I saw was a list of conflicts relating to territories of the former USSR.
Yes, "former". As in: not internal to the russian federation. As in: in territories that constitute(d) independent sovereign nations.
The claim being challenged here is regarding the alleged Russian "aggression,"
"alleged"? There's nothing "alleged" here. Tanks physically and factually rolled across the border into neighboring sovereign countries in military invasions resulting in occupations and annexation / puppet installment of regimes.
and nobody has shown that Russia was the instigator in these conflicts or that it was anything beyond happenstance created in the chaotic situation after the breakup of the USSR.
Sheesh man, it's like talking to a Russian state TV channel.
You're so obsessed with wanting to blacken and tar "those dirty Russians"
No. I just feel no need to lie about it.
that you'll dig up an incident of someone slipping on a banana peel and blame "Russian aggression" for it. Do you honestly believe I can't see through your cheesy tactics?
I'm not blaming slipping on a banana peel on "russian aggression".
I'm just calling actual russian aggression what it is: russian aggression.
I think you'll find that this tactic doesn't work with me either. You're just not trying very hard to convince me.
Ow please, I could never convince you. You're already far to deep into the Russian propaganda mill.
No, just a comparison.
@Mock Turtle suggested in his post above that Russia had to show it could be trusted, and my contention was that they did show they could be trusted when they disbanded the Warsaw Pact of their own free will.
This wasn't out of "free will". Again, I advice you to read up on what was going on in the USSR and its satellite states from 1986 onwards. And pick an independent source - not more Russian propaganda.
But trust is a two-way street, and we also had to show that we could be trusted, too. My contention is that our government failed in that respect, for the reasons you're handwaving away as "whataboutisms."
It's whataboutisms in the context of the point being made here.
Regardless of what the US or anyone else did, the idea that Russia didn't engage in any aggression from 1991 to 2014 is beyond absurd!
The reign of Putin especially since he rose to power in the 90s has been especially bloody, both abroad as well as internally (go look for his political opponents... they are all either dead, banished or in prison).
Whatever aggression the US did or didn't engage in, has nothing to do with what the Russians were up to for the past 30 years.
You made a claim: that the didn't engage in aggression from 1991 to 2014.
This claim is simply not correct. It's either a bold faced lie or an extreme show of honest ignorance.
No amount of misdeeds by the US, or any other western nation, are relevant to this falsehood.
Sorry, your attempt at obfuscation has failed.
LOL
Says the guy who tries to play down the atrocities Russia committed in Georgie, Moldova, Chechnya, etc.
What's next? Ukraine is not a war but just an insignificant "special military operation" which is to be seen as "internal affairs" of Russia?
puh-lease!
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