It’s a liberal cesspool full of people who refuse to listen when you speak. I explained how the SMO in Russia was justified going all the way back to fucking WWII and Stepan Bandera to Russia not wanting Ukraine in NATO and some dickhead told me to “tOuCH gRaSS”. Didn’t even address any of my points, just that “dEnAziFIcaTioN iSnT a gOoD rEasOn, iT’s aS bAd aS wMDs”.
Fucking moron. I hate that fucking place so fucking much.
Ukraine was already becoming a de facto member of NATO before Russia intervened. NATO infrastructure was being built on its territory, interoperability was being established, it was being armed and trained by NATO and NATO operatives were already embedded in their military and intelligence apparatus. The same is true for Sweden and Finland too hence why their formal joining makes little to no difference. Russia intervened to prevent a genocide in the Donbass and to reverse the NATOization - aka Nazification and militarization - of Ukraine.
Ukraine is being treated as a de facto member of NATO as the entirety of NATO is bending over backwards to send them every scrap of military equipment they can scrounge up, to send them intelligence, to train them and help them plan military operations, and inject thousands of “trainers”, “mercenaries” and “volunteers” aka NATO soldiers in disguise into the battlefield. This is not much different than what NATO would do for an official member. They also would have tried to impose a no-fly zone if they thought they could do so without their air force being absolutely wrecked by Russia.
At this point Russia has no incentive to end the conflict before Ukraine is either completely annexed so it can no longer be weaponized by NATO against Russia, or until it capitulates to all of Russia’s demands, which will include the removal of the Nazi regime in Kiev and the installation of a pro-Russian government that will enshrine Ukraine’s neutral and demilitarized status into permanent law/treaties. The notion that Russia should have just let the situation in Ukraine continue to fester and worsen because their intervention has pissed off NATO is infantile and naive to the highest possible degree.
Russia already tried the diplomatic route from 2014 onwards with the Minsk agreements and that turned out to be a complete sham on the part of the West and Ukraine. If anything Russia should have intervened much earlier, ideally gone in right after the Maidan to restore order and the legitimate government of Ukraine, but hindsight is 20/20.