Actually Ukraine started the killing by negating its commitment to the Minsk Agreement (which Merkel admitted was a sham from the beginning) and firing artillery at its own Russian speaking people in the Donbas region, killing something to the tune of 8-15 thousand of its own citizens. But who started the war or who is the guilty party is immaterial if there’s going to be an end to the war. Just stop killing each other, it’s as simple as that. Then let the ones who want to be Russian be Russian and those that want to be Ukrainians be Ukrainians. I’d bet the people caught in the crossfire would be in favor of that simpke solution.
Know you & I differ on this, by a wide margin, but your above argument is just damned silly.
Putin fomented the invasion of the Donbas with russian troops & Wagner, that is simply an indisputable fact. There was no organic spontaneous uprising by people within what would eventually be illegally declared the DNR & LHR. After signing the Budapest accords he invaded Crimea & the Donbas. This has nothing to do with "letting people who want to be russians be russian," way more nuanced than that & in that part of the world there are all kinds of ethnic minorities who believe they should have a carve out within an already established countries boundaries. That part of the world, including the Balkans would be in an endless cycle of war forever.
Simple question then. Did the people who wanted to be Nazi's at the beginning of Germanies aggression then get to decide to not be Nazi's afterwards & sue for a negotiated peace because they were tired of the war & killing?
There were also 1,000's of Ukrainians they were expelled from the Donbas with nothing but what they had on their backs, what about them. Many Ukrainians were killed by the russian soldiers & wagner during the invasion & many more subsequent to the forming of LHR & DNR on sovereign Ukrainian territory. What about them?
Here is on immutable fact about the world we live in its ugly, dangerous & war is a constant reminder that the stronger will ALWAYS try to subjugate the weaker. Putin has been always for a greater "Imperial" Russian footprint, the Donbas & Crimea were never about rescuing "alleged" abused russians, but expanding that imperialistic footprint and a future jump off point for further invasions if the world did nothing. Also the areas in the Donbas & Luhansk have nearly all of Ukraines natural resources, how does Ukraine make up for those state revenue & job losses if they are forced to surrender?
I respect each & every one of you who demand a peace & the end to fighting there & bemoan the money & weapons being sent. Remember this though, until 2014 (and no the Maiden revolution was not put into motion by the CIA or US government) Ukraine was a russian vassal state for the most part. You can't expect a country, any country that is 8 years removed from being run by pro-russian rulers who's corruption knew no bounds, to suddenly be squeaky clean. To expect a country that was awash in corruption to do a 360 in 8-years is just silly and to put that into perspective Liz Cheney went from a net worth of $7 million in 2016 to a net worth of $44 million in 2022. This country has no boast or righteous claim to lack of corruption.
You have a population whose relatives were slaughter after 1921 during the bolshevik revolution & in the 30's millions were carted off to Siberia or killed/purposely starved (Holodomor) to make way for collectivization & russians.
I've also asked you to give me diplomatic proof of the whole "everyone promised that NATO would move no further east. I'm not talking about someone saying they said this or that, I'm talking about a treaty that documents that promise. When you look at the absolute misery the dam bolsheviks have wrought on every country in that part of the world there is a reason they all want to be in NATO's fold, you know the NATO that is strictly a DEFENSIVE ORGANIZATION.
One thing we possibly would agree on though is some very tangible milestones must be obtained by the Ukrainian military in order for us to continue unrelenting support which would include F-16's & anything else they need to recover only the territory that has been stolen. Absent that then there needs to be a hard stop to the aid & they need to be told to negotiate. We simply can not continue to feed the weapons to them through an eyedropper though.
The world also needs to come entirely down on russia & Belarus & their whole economy. If china supplies lethal weapons then the world needs to help crush their economy as well. If the world loses their resolve you can expect Taiwan to be next & that will be a world war, not the oft mentioned alleged World War III we are sleep walking into in Ukraine.
The absolutely most tragic thing about this war is when russian troops started massing on Ukraine's border from Belarus & russia the world should have immediately agreed to provide most robust western arms systems & start training Ukrainian troops on how to use them. It would have been a very proficient deterrent & my guess is even if they still hd attacked they would have made little to no headway. People are defending their own soil now & that motivation counts more than most things the bolsheviks have or do. Read the book "Carnage & Culture," it lays out very well why democratic free societies usually always prevail over totalitarian regimes in war. From the battle of Salamis in Greece (480 BC) to World War II & even to a point the Korean War. Always were some exceptions, but by in large the vast majority of war being fought by free men vs slaves or subjects resulted in the free men winning.
