Russia's decade of war against Ukraine exposes folly of appeasement

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

56% : In such a world of "treacherous adversaries," Russia must be ready to act - by striking pre-emptively with strategies of "hybrid warfare," seamlessly combining military and non-military means to destabilize opponents, it follows from the documents.
46% : However, all Putin got out of his 2014 occupation was difficulties with sanctions and international lawsuits, with the conflict zone in Donbas at best earning him high-level meetings with Trump, Macron, or Erdogan, the report goes.
44% : The Minsk Agreements, brokered by France and Germany, and up till Russia's full-scale invasion touted as the only solution to end the war in Ukraine, were an attempt to usher away the problem of Russia's aggression in hopes that appeasement would allow the EU to continue living and doing business as usual.
41% : This deal was a no-go for Ukraine from the start, yet it was pressured by European partners to accept: Putin's "escalation blackmail" and the shadow of a conventional and even nuclear war in Europe hit a trigger point with EU leaders, particularly then German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
41% : Although the declared purpose of these armies was to confront NATO, the anti-Ukrainian direction was obvious: to create permanent military and psychological pressure on Ukraine, apart from intimidating the EU to lift sanctions, the 2019 report says.
40% : The Euromaidan Revolution, in which Ukrainians rebelled against President Yanukovych's capitulation to Russian pressure to make a U-turn on Ukraine's plans to integrate with the EU, caught Putin at a moment of increasing paranoia about democratic movements in Russia and elsewhere.
35% : Russia's occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and even earlier, Georgia, was met with a slap on the wrist from the EU and USA.

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