zlacker

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+(OP)
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+(OP)
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.