You straight up accused me of saying that only a minority of all Ukrainians oppose the Russian invasion.
Husky does that reverse sarcasm hyperbole bit a lot.
It's not helpful at all to actually figuring out what his point is supposed to be and why.
I don't think you are a vatnik or shill, Terthna, just very jaded by things that have happened since 2014 domestically and allowing that to color your perception of the current state of things. I get it, I really do when I look at the state of the clown show domestically.
However an unstable, heavily armed rodeo clown may be just what is needed to help the nation-sized honeybadger Ukraine has proven to be, given the enemy is a rabid, slowly starving bear.
I think you are wrong about how 2014 turned out on a few points:
1) Ukraine as a whole wanted into the EU with a tariff structure that favored EU goods over Russian goods. The patsy for Moscow backed out of a EU trade deal at the last minute after Putin yanks his chain. It was not, at that time, an issue of NATO membership.
2) You completely fail to mention the international and internal impact of the MH17 shootdown by the rebels in the early days, with a Buk system that was caught on camera fleeing back to Russia and which is still denied by Russia and the rebels to this day. We were both on SB when that happened, and I for one saw the brief span of time on twitter when the rebels still thought they'd downed a Ukrainian transport, and the hasty cover-up that ensued once the truth was out. I also saw how Ukraine had the rebels nearly beat at one point, before Putin's 'little green men' rolled several armored columns across the border, and this was after a gunpoint annexation of Crimea with airborne and naval units.
3) The 'rebels' in the eastern areas near the Donbas are sitting on top of shale oil reserves, along with off-shore reserves off Crimea, that threatened Russia's then near monoploy on natural gas supply to Europe, because so many of the pipes had to pass through Ukraine from Russia to eastern Europe. There were contracts in place to go into those reserves, with western companies, and Putin/Russia invaded with 'little green men' mostly to secure those deposits/areas for well-heads later on, as well as the human capital sitting above the petro-chem layers. The first days of the rebels were basically as mafia enforcers for the ousted Russian puppet, who just happened to have had close enough ties with the military of both nations that some defected, even when the government of Kyiv was ruled to have legitimately changed hands as per the Ukrainian parliament after the president fled during the later stages of the Maidan.
I think more recent events, stuff after 2016, and the actions of domestic actors in the US have absolutely given people reason to doubt their judgement on some, or maybe almost all, matters.
Ukraine is not domestic issues, the Russians own words are all that is needed to condemn them, though dank memes do help and Russia isn't going to the 2024 Olympics.
Remember, I once doubted the reporting about Ukraine too, till Putin built that bridge to send 1st Guards Army tanks through Chernobyl. I know military and political history enough to understand the bluff Putin pulled, and is still pulling in many regards, against the West, playing every side possible against the other, and sometime just sitting back to watch us destroy ourselves (Russia had no part in either 2016 or 2020 elections outcome, of that I am rather sure).
It's why I am so dedicated to trying to destroy Putin's bluff, in any small way I can.
The Holomodor, the horrors of some of the other eastern European wars, Chernobyl, and now simple geology has made Ukraine a conflict zone and a site of horrors and tragedies on immense scale. Ukraine has been like an unluckier Poland, and is finally in a position to break free of Moscow the way the US did from the Brits, and independent for the first time in a long time, just like Poland and Israel had happen.
And the fact is, a lot of the poison the American Left is spreading was planted on academia and media by Marxist agents for the early Russian commie organizations all the way back to the 20s, and well, America did kinda fuck ourselves socially with Woodrow Wilson's legacy allowing even faster commie spread as the Great Depression churned into being.
Realize that the root of a lot of Leftist evil lies in Moscow, and is seeded from Moscow; how can we defeat Leftists in the west if we do not address the root of much Leftist madness is sitting in the Kremlin? Purging commies in the rest of society would be a lot easier if Moscow wasn't helping many of them, some times without their knowledge even. Most Lefties would also never want to deal with the facts of how Moscow influenced academia and media specifically to undermine the west, and the intel services are too habitually tight lipped at the right times while too political at the wrong times to have been able to effectively counter the infilitration when frankly looking for German or Japanese agents was a higher priority for a while.
This is not a simple 'with me or against me' in terms of the righteousness of supporting Ukraine anymore, either.
This war is not going to be a short one, unfortunately, and time will open more eyes than any thing any of those of us who openly support Ukraine say. I personally spend so much time on the topic because I know what it's like to have a lot of the same doubts I heard voiced about Ukraine and have heard the different sides of different arguments. Many were often close to one's I had before the bridge went up in Chernobyl, and evaporated after Zelensky said "I need ammo, not a ride" as forces began to airdrop into Kyiv while the VDV tried to hold Hostomel, showing much of what I had though about the current situation in terms of national unity in Ukraine.
So understand, that if it feels like I harp on the subject in ways that 'endanger friendships' because I am willing to be confrontational about it, maybe consider that from my side I see it as I'm trying to pry blinders off people who don't want to admit they have them on. Or in a few isolated cases of legit vatniks (History Learner, Agent23, etc.), just use them as metaphorical punching bags to show why the orcs of Moscow and their willing servants and shills are no better than people who simp for the Kim family in North Korea.
So, I guess there was nothing authoritarian about the Nazis, Soviets or the CCP?
