zlacker

Maybe you're right. I honestly don't know. But I only have so much time in a day to veryfy everything. I'm talking from memory of course, but this Ukraine invasion didn't "come out of the blue" AFAIK.

Here's a collection of sources compiled by someone on Quora. I dont know how biased or accurate this person is. However, there were other instances that made me think this isn't so black-and-white or "clean" as I'd like it to be.

https://www.quora.com/If-Putin-is-indeed-the-real-aggressor-...

A lot of the sources he used are from Ukranian websites so you might need to run them through Google Translate. Some are from reputable (for at least some definition of reputable) western media outlets like CNN, BBC, NYT, etc.

The embedded vidoes don't seem to work in Chrome (they just disappear when I click them) so I've extracted the link for one of them here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 - Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer, uploaded by The University of Chicago

Other videos are shorter clips to prove a point, but if anyone's interested they can see the video ID in the embedded image URL when inspecting the element.

Again, maybe this is all dogshit like you say, but I find that too dismissive of the facts presented.

>>spoile+(OP)
Just by peaking over the Quora article it is enough to say it is a Russian propaganda piece, things like some UA nazis (Russians also have some nazi admirers), the "referendums" and so on. Even if these referendums were legit, does it really trump a nations sovereignty (I am talking from my own experience as a lot of Russians were imported and locals deported in my country during the Soviet occupation and these people never integrated and probably even today there are regions where the population is mainly these Russian imports who would gladly be part of Russia). The main issue is that Russia has the view of "either you are with us or against us" so if you don't play ball we will going to "fuck you". Personally, i think that nobody understand Russia better than Eastern Europeans and the West is pretty much failing (at least the EU West who thought that playing ball with Russia will get them to back off) - https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-that-warned-about-... The Baltics have pretty much lived all their freedom years under Russian propaganda, let it be claims that we are nazis, russophobes and any other type of oppressors of the Russian people or even a threat of Russia itself. So seeing how many in the West are falling for Russian bullshit is just sad.

>>ohmaig+R4
Ah, I am still not fully convinced the situation is so clear even after reading the BI article...

There is definitely propganda on both sides (and how much of it is true is hard to tell). Russia isn't the only one with a propaganda machine, if anything the US is much more successful at it than Russia could ever hope to be.

I encourage you to read more of the Quora article, even if I appreciate that some of the stuff in the article might be hard to stomach, since you seem emotionally closer to the issue than I do. I believe a lot of it is very unlikely to stem from Russian propaganda.

Some of the stuff you attributed (eg you mentioned tribalism and spite) to Russia isn't unique to them or their politics; it's just a very primitive part of human nature that we still struggle with.

And to close with a tangent: it's always good to keep in mind that nobody (neither you or I) is immune to propagand; especially when it's pushed by state actors with a larger agenda. This is why I often indulge in reading stuff I don't agree with (within reason). Does give me a bit of cognitive dissonance occasionally, but alas.

>>spoile+sg
I completely understand that there is a "big boys table" and everybody else, but the hard facts are that Russia occupied territories of a sovereign nation (Crimea/Donbass/Lugansk) and now is waging a full on war with that nation while stating random reasons (nazis/biolabs/Russian integrity/etc.). So i feel that anyone who tries to reason "Russia attacked because of X" is pretty much a Russian supporter. And it hits close to home because potentially unless we are in NATO, we would be next.

>>spoile+sg
If Catalonia decided to join France and France went and carpetbombed Madrid, I think we'd all be equally horrified.

There's zero excuse for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I don't even see how this is semi-debatable.

>>spoile+(OP)
While that Quora article has some important references to see the whole picture better it's still very biased and the conclusion that Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself from WW3 is pretty wild. Because otherwise NATO would've attacked Russia (a country with nuclear weapons) or what?