What I have learned: * Russia has already won the Ukraine war * Which NATO
started * A lot of people in the West think that Ukraine should surrender * Also
Ukraine was the world’s main provider of CSAM * Also Ukraine is exploited by the
West but if they can unite with Russia then their economy and everything else
will finally be alright It’s literally like a bizarro world and everyone is over
there agreeing with it. I’m genuinely confused by, who even are these people
(what is the mixture of Russian bots / Russian-aligned ordinary people /
confused Westerners / some other explanation.)
when your long term strategic prognosis is "well if we dig in obstinately and turn our homeland into a meat grinder, we can make a wasteland not dissimilar to what iraq and afganistan became", it feels like... you know, that's not actually an ideal outcome for anyone. Take the L, for the good of your people. A flag changes, some [very corrupt] government people need to flee - and you lose autonomy... but the meat grinder is... it's worth all that to you? you have so much compassion for Ukraine!!!!
That’s the thing, the flag wouldn’t even change. Russia doesn’t want to outright subsume Ukraine back into Russia, it would just become another Afghanistan for them. They just want it knee capped and out of the Western sphere of influence.
see, that sounds like shit to me, i understand where they're coming from on one level - realpolitiking your way into a brutal invasion is shithead behavior no matter what country it's in service of - but the fact is turning Ukraine into a depopulated wasteland is the bigger L than a capitulation that sees russia getting what it wants, that's all i see. Like, everyone loses even more the more protracted and dug in resistance becomes, and the threat of this escalating and turning into something bigger and dumber (too late tbqh) grows every day it continues - I want things de-escalated and fuck Ukraine's sovreignty if that's what would give the ground.