It's sad to see how easily westerners are mislead by our own leaders, who ape Soviet contempt for constituents and maliciously ignore voter inputs.

You should at least make an effort to see things from the Russian point of view. To say there's nothing valid in the Russian state's actions, is really idiotic.

1) Are post WW2 borders sacred?

2) The dissolution of the USSR was chaotic, unnegotiated, and basically due to the magnanimity of Gorbachev.

3) Therefore, post USSR space resembles post-colonial Africa: former co-nationals are now minorities, depending on which post-Soviet state one examines. Armenia and Azerbaijan are good examples. Oh, but the news didn't tell you to get upset about it yet, so you have no opinion? That's why these opinions on Ukraine are so unprincipled.

4) The Turks depopulated Ukraine via the slave trade. Russia conquered the land, pushed the Turks back, and colonized E Ukraine for themselves. 18th century stuff. What I want to know is why the wokester position (the official Western "Good Guy" position, otherwise known the Party Line Winston) finds the USA's existence an affront to Native Americans and Mexicans, Israel's existence an affront to Palestinians, but cares not one whit for Poland occupying half of historic Germany, Turkey's ongoing genocide of Armenians (They back Azerbaijan, and Turkey is also a NATO power), and Greeks (threatening to invade... read proper journalists and you'll know)?

5) The West did the same thing to Serbia. The West in fact helped with the Muslim genocide of Serbians. Kosovo is the origin of Serbian culture and the Muslims overran it in the last 400 years. If you weep for the Native Americans and Tibetans, then you should care about what happened in Serbia too. Worse, the precedent is the one that the Russians used as the pretext to invade Ukraine.

6) Crimea was given to Ukraine in the 1950s by Khrushchev. It was Tatar and then it was Russian. HOW IS THAT SACRED? The same international law the US breaks constantly?

7) Remember that post-Cold War Magnanimity by Gorby? Know how people keep saying 'uh oh, if Putin loses, he'll nuke us all?' Do you really think that political shift came from nowhere? The west has been attacking Russia ever since the Cold War ended. If western idiots (sadly, most of us) haven't recognized (or are too ignorant to even know about because you don't read) the damage, that's only because you do the same thing the Russians do: slavishly listen to leaders without actually questioning the fact-stack. The US broke the promise not to move NATO eastward. That was the original sin. That was not nothing. That was as aggressive as attacking Ukraine. The demographic decline of Russia is not war damage? The economic damage of allowing China into the WTO and not Russia (when they were trying to be good) is not war damage? The use of western financial institutions to pillage Russia and financialize and control its mineral assets, while at the same time encouraging the de-industrializing of Russia is not war damage?

8) The Russians stopped the Cold War, but the US and the West did not.

9) Now they are mobilizing. They can't do it like we do: the US uses war to pillage its own people. The Russians are mobilizing the only way they can: the old fashioned way. The Russians are pushing back the only way they can: the old fashioned way.

10) Everywhere I go, supposedly intelligent people act like citizens of Oceana who can't seem to remember what happened the prior news cycle and remember only what the Wokeing class demands. Everything else goes in the memory hole.

11) THE WEST IS JUST AS BAD! CYBERPUNK IS JUST AS SH!T AS FALLOUT!

12) I didn't want any of this. The time to have stopped this was in the 1990s when the Western Trojan horse known as Chubais was busy annihilating the Russian economy. We nurtured China because their slaves were going to make our masters more profits and turn the majority of Americans from a free people with trades into a poor, welfare dependent people from the noblesse oblige of our 'elites' who shipped our manufacturing overseas... Russia has resources, China has slaves. Russia didn't play along when we tried financializing their economy and pulling it into our orbit. So now it's war.

13) To all you stubborn ignorant dummies: Good job. You have caused global starvation, European economic collapse, the annihilation of Ukraine, and it all benefits... you?

14) Hacker News is filled with beneficiaries of US policies. You can rely on a man to not understand something when his paycheck is dependent on him not understanding.

15) Keep on downvoting. The truth is a virus and I hope it destroys your brains.