Ukraine has built a solid Democratic infrastructure while Russia has waged war and subverted, threatened and imposed on them the whole time. We, the west, should make no apologies for supporting Ukrainians becoming a free democracy. If anything Russia undermined its own interest by annexing Crimea and taking away pro Russian votes from the Ukrainian system. It was probably the nail in the coffin for their political agenda in Ukraine.
If we believed what the "common American" want from TV then God save our souls.... You are nuts re Russians appetite for Europe. Fortunately nobody in Europe is as nuts as you are.
It has forever been a dark country, with tons of criminal energy, some of the world's most notorious child and woman traffickers are Ukrainian gangs. A culture that does not have much respect for the truth. You are completely blindsided believing of a beautiful Ukraine. Again, I denounce the Russian invasion and have done so, but your picture of Ukraine is straight from your last LSD trip.
" "The Cuba 1962 analogy/chesnut the Putin apologist are seemingly required to use is complete bullshit and if anyone has a need to understand why then say so and I will give you the proper way of looking at it." The Cuban Missile Crisis was a scary,ugly chapter in world history. But it is all relative, eh? One could- especially in times such as now- make the case that it had an overwhelmingly positive outcome. No shooting war between Americans and Russians, and no mushroom clouds. Some might say "well, that's a pretty low bar to meet" but some days that sounds pretty good. The Americans backed the Russian down in Cuba, and the Americans were backed down in Turkey and had to pull back missile placements. It could have been worse. One of the ingredients for a successful outcome was that were not working secondary goals. The Americans did not want the missiles in Cuba, and Russia was not saying, "I want the missiles out of Turkey and, oh by the way, I still want to occupy Cuba and make it part of the Soviet Union. Even though various parties can or want to make the case that the Americans suck and /or the Soviet Union sucked, it is a historical fact that we worked it out. We done good. Not as good as never having arrived there but not bad. This is the fly in the ointment and the ruse that underpins negotiating/satisfying the Russians. ie. do or say what you will but Putin still wants Ukraine or as much as he can get. You can yield on this or that and he still wants Ukraine. He starts with the idea that he wants Ukraine then fills in the rationale to go with it. Then if you yield doing nothing about the Crimea seizure he just keeps coming. If Zelensky floats the idea of not joining Nato, then Putin ups the game and says you can't be part of EU either. On and on. Bottom line. He wants Ukraine for starters. That's not a Cuban Missile Crisis scenario where there were only a couple moving parts and demans so you can shuffle the deck until you found something worked. Now for those who like to rise - as they often do- and say well Putin said this and that and want me to google around and re-educate them, I say unto them: Homey don't play that game. Putin has been at for years and never covered it up regard to denying Ukraine sovereignty and self-stimulating about bagging it. He just thought he could get via the puppet government route but the Ukrainians through that clown out and so they have had to go the direct route of invasion- again. Just listen to what he said in his speech just recently and think about it. From Putin's mouth: "Let me emphasize once again that Ukraine for us is not just a neighboring country. It is an integral part of our own history, culture, spiritual space." "Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood." "From the very first steps they began to build their statehood on the denial of everything that unites us. They tried to distort the consciousness, the historical memory of millions of people, entire generations living in Ukraine." "And now grateful descendants have demolished monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. This is what they call decommunisation. Do you want decommunisation? Well, that suits us just fine. But it is unnecessary, as they say, to stop halfway. We are ready to show you what real decommunisation means for Ukraine." And so I say again, these attempts to put Cuba in our face as something that entitles Russia to do this or that are bullshit. The resolution of that crisis was a painful success story, and it was only made possible by both parties not have having second, third, and fourth tier goals and decades of butthurt that they expected to resolve. Putin's approach to all of this is a trick process. He wants Ukraine. Say or do what you will and- you got it- he wants Ukraine. And now he has moved on to the No-EU thing as part of his "marry me or I will kill you" demands upon Ukraine. Fuck you Russian warship.
Youre wrong about Ukrainian democracy and on the other hand right that it has very shady history. But there is no doubt Ukraine has an improved government than say ten years ago. And there is no way you can read what I wrote and say I tried to describe it as a “beautiful Ukraine.” I am well aware of its past problems but again this does not take away from the solid progress Ukraine has made over recent years.
So then that must mean when Russia invaded Afghanistan you spoke out, when Russia invaded Soviet Georgia you spoke out, when the former USSR aka Russia invaded dozens of other countries you spoke. Ok last one you either weren't born yet or were a child. But admit it what you really don't like is the U.S.A. itself whether or not the nation is hypocritical. What nation isn't lol. We just happen to be the biggest, baddest one and you just don't like that at all.