@Tinidril It's realistic is what it is. It's not trying to paint Putin as some evil Hitler clone. It's what happens when you don't have a vested interest in the military industrial complex and aren't a shill for someone who does.
The hundreds of thousands dead so-far will be glad to know that Putin is just being misunderstood and is actually a pretty nice guy. Who the fuck said anything about Hitler?
@Tinidril If it were not for our input I kind of doubt that would be the case.
You know we are at a precipice, we have the technology now to really make this world a nice place, or we can fight over what are mostly obsolete resources and turn it into a hellscape. I would prefer the former but obviously you and a lot of others prefer the latter.
I'm against Russia invading Ukraine to commit genocide and steal scarce resources so, therefore, I must be in favor of killing people and stealing resources. Yeah, that tracks. Try harder.
@Tinidril I would be against that too but that is not the reason they invaded the Ukraine. I know someone who was born in Kiev, then lived in Moscow Russia, then moved to the United States, so he identifies with both sides of the conflict and just wants to see it end, but that's not happen as long as we continue to turn it into a proxy war with Russia.
Putin was so concerned about NATO expanding right to Russia's doorstep that he did an invasion that immediately led to NATO expanding right to Russia's doorstep. Even Putin stopped trying to sell that bullshit months ago, probably because it makes him look like a complete idiot.
If the US abandons Ukraine, you think that's the end of the conflict? Completing an invasion is the easy part. It's occupation that's the hard part. That's when the real brutality begins, and Russia doesn't have nearly enough occupiers to do it properly. There will be at least a decade of even more horrific bloodshed, probably ending in a Russian withdrawal.
Your friend's heart might be in the right place, but they don't know how warfare works.
@Tinidril He was backed into a corner and so he fought, he gave plenty of indications of what would happen, we ignored them, he followed through with exactly what he said he would do. If we'd followed through with what we said we would do and not advanced NATO past East Germany, then all Raytheon and company wouldn't be racking in the dollars killing people now.