People need to stop supporting and paying all these Ukraine fundraisers. Their money is going nowhere to actually help the civilians there. You’re being played just like all Americans paying taxes for years all to be handed out to other politicians spewing the same shit; different country. Zalensky is just another POS reaching for celebrity status and is doing nothing for the country as a whole. Ukraine has always been in a sad state of not having their own identity for centuries.. And America, among other countries, see this and have been exploiting it by inserting their own policies there and instigating rise ups for cover ups for years and years. The unbridled hate towards Russia and Putin is so blind, ignorant and heated by the mainstream media, it’s disgusting.
Europe
- pacifist governments and foreign policy (support for the Iraq war was non-existent)
- cancelled missile shield after Russian protests
- invested heavily in Russian markets/banks and energy projects (NordStream 2)
(not to mention we helped them countless of times when disaster struck)
Russia
- invaded Georgia
- attempted a coup in Moldova
- pressured Yanukovich into not dealing with the EU
- actively aided regimes hostile to the EU (and by extension NATO)
- captured the Crimea
- shot down a plane carrying EU citizens, covered it up and then denied it
- created "rebel republics" in the Donbass
- created a border crisis along the Belarus/Polish border
- made a mockery out of the leadership of Germany/France/UK who feared an invasion would have dire consequences
- invaded Ukraine
No political meddling by the US or their allies can justify bombing Kyiv, Mariupol and Kharkiv.
The idea that Russia was wronged by the 'west' is utter bullshit.
Ukraine is not the same as it was in 2014. They've come along way to root out corruption on a local level and if you look at their government, it's mostly young people now.
People who want to have a future in the European Union and not join the ranks of the orcs that have descended on them.
Russia could've kept Crimea and they could've swapped out the 'rebels' for their own army in the east and annex that territory.
There would've been some sanctions and protests but nothing like what is happening now.
Ukraine was never a threat to Russia and the chances of Ukraine joining NATO or even the EU this decade were and still are slim.
What is clear is that they don't want to join Russia. The fact that Russia wasn't 'welcomed' in Kharkiv (probably the most pro-Russian city in Ukraine) tells enough.
This war exists for one reason only. Putin wants to reunite Ukraine with Russia and cleanse the cities of those that resist and stand in his way, much like he has done in Russia for the past 20 years.
Everyone in Europe thought that the 'Russian strong man' was merely a cover he needed domestically to keep a country as vast as Russia together and that Putin was a rational opportunist (who supports liberals, nationalists or conservatives when it suits him) at best and just lining his own pockets and those of his friends at worst. Most of all a bureaucrat you can do business with and Europe always feared that Putin would be replaced by someone (far) worse than him.
Turns out it's the other way around. The liberal Putin, nationalist Putin and conservative Putin were merely disguises to hide his true intentions and nature.
not having their own identity for centuries.
A direct result of the Holomodor and Russian migration policies, which meant rounding people up and dropping them in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold of Siberia.
It's a miracle so much of Ukrainian culture even survived Stalin and the Nazi's. The Russians should not look what they lost when the communists gave the Crimea back to Ukraine but rather why they did it.
Which was to pay off a debt in blood that couldn't be repaid by a thousand Crimea's. Ukraine doesn't owe Russia or Putin anything.