[tomder55]

Nice smear . He is correct in saying that much of the Ukraine opposition in the Donbas are Nazis . Because I point out the fact does not indicate that I agree with his invasion . I find it interesting that only since Putin's threat to Ukraine has the left denounced the accusation .Before that the Nazi Ukraine charge was a feature of the western left .

Antisemitism is a historic problem in Ukraine . Ukraine’s Nazi problem is related to its failure to grapple with the dark side of its legacy. Scores of collaborators assisted in the occupation and Holocaust extermination when Germany invaded .

The fact that they have a Nazi problem is not propaganda . It is shameless propaganda to use it as a justification for invasion ;especially from a nation like Russia that has it's own history of persecutions .

What he said is real however . The Azov militia makes no secret about their Nazi sympathies .They were incorporated into the Ukraine National Guard specifically into the Donbas region to fight in the civil war against the break away region. Their atrocities have been documented .

Ukrainian Nationalist Volunteers Committing 'ISIS-Style' War Crimes (newsweek.com)

There’s One Far-Right Movement That Hates the Kremlin – Foreign Policy

Examining the Threat of the Azov Movement in Ukraine - GeoHistory

Preparing for War With Ukraine’s Fascist Defenders of Freedom – Foreign Policy

The links above are not Putin propaganda . They are all respected western journals .

If you want to see my views ,they are well documented in my various postings about the Ukraine crisis . I don't excuse Putin's actions BUT I do contend that we backed him into a corner where he did not have many options .

Now going forward unless you see the end game as a 1945 total war win against a nuclear powered Russia then there will have to be a negotiated settlement. This time unlike in the 1990s consideration will have to be made to concerns that Russia feels are existential.

IMO the best outcome for all would be a neutral non-aligned Ukraine that is free to engage economically with both the west and Russia and does not pose a geopolitical threat to either side. As an opening salvo the west should immediately agree what is a truth anyway that Ukraine will never be a part of NATO.

The West Could Have Prevented The Russo-Ukrainian War, But Didn't (thefederalist.com)

"The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked,”

Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf (mearsheimer.com)

[Curlyben]

Not meant as a smear more showing that views don't have to be polar, there are more that two sides to every argument or opinion.
There are International routes that should have been taken with these concerns, and as a permanent member of the UN security council, Russia has open access to them all.

IMO the best outcome for all would be a neutral non-aligned Ukraine that is free to engage economically with both the west and Russia and does not pose a geopolitical threat to either side. As an opening salvo the west should immediately agree what is a truth anyway that Ukraine will never be a part of NATO.

Pretty much agree, with the fall of the Warsaw pact and the USSR the need for NATO as an entity really ceased to exist, entering the realm of UN peacekeeping.
Expansion into the previous Soviet states poked the bear and we're starting to see the outcome of that.

[tomder55]

The UN as an institution was a poor enforcer of the post WWII world with the one exception of when Russia mistakenly walked out of the Korea intervention debate .
They did not make that mistake this week when they vetoed a UN response to their aggression in Ukraine .

As an institution it is as obsolete as NATO. We are now entering multipolarity similar to pre-WWI and God help us this time . I wish it weren't so . I am more comfortable with the US being the big dog in a coalition of free people . But that has come at a tremendous cost to us that is hardly matched by our allies .

Again the west has it's share of the blame . Russia and China have not made it a secret that they do not accept western global hegemony and we have not done a thing to address that .

[tomder55]

Putin miscalculated the extent of the resistance . I have no doubt he thought this would be a mop up operation at this time , His safest bet at this point would be to withdraw from Ukraine broadly and set up shop in Donetsk & Luhansk and frame that as a "win" for Russia.

[tomder55]

Evidently Clueless offered a cut and run option to Zelensky ala the US embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan .

“Zelensky, meanwhile, turned down an American offer to evacuate, saying the ‘fight is here,’ Ukraine’s embassy in Britain tweeted. ‘I need ammunition, not a ride,'”

Ukraine's President Refuses U.S. Offer to Evacuate | Time

[tomder55]

Despite reports of Russia having a tougher slog than expected ;Putin has almost achieved his military goals. The battle for Kyiv is a secondary objective. His real goal was Eastern Ukraine east of the Dnipro River . He has almost completely cut off about 40,000 Ukrainian troops there from the rest of Ukraine.

This is why Russia and Ukraine will meet today . Zelensky will have to come to a political solution or see his troops in the East annihilated and Kyiv under siege as Russia did to Grozny .

The end game is a Russian friendly state east of the river ...maybe incorporation into Russia;and a neutral nation of Ukraine west of the river . Zelensky's request to join the EU is a last gasp attempt to change this outcome.