If that was the case, then why the incredibly pointless and aggressive gesture of annexing Kherson and Odessa? Those weren't regions featuring violence, and pro-Ukrainians are an absolute majority.

Lol. Neither Kherson or Odessa are annexed. Wtf are you talking about. It's right there even on wikipedia's map. Even if Russia did occupy cities that Nazi forces are using as a staging ground to wage their war against Russian-speakers, that's not exactly a mark against Russia. You really are proving you have no clue how conflict has ever worked in the history of humanity. Also, even if an area isn't predominantly Russian-speaking, doesn't mean everyone there is literally siding with the Nazis. Someone mentioned black and white thinking in this thread and that's what you're doing. I'm sure the civilians in Kherson love being abducted by masked men in white vans and forced into conscription for Ukraine.

You can't claim that you're just trying to protect one small part of a country by invading all of it, that just shows it for the obvious pretext for invasion that it is.

Yes. Yes you can. I don't know what else there is to say to you if you don't understand that limiting your entire military effort to a single line is not only stupid but simply doesn't happen.

If Putin had just kept slicing off pieces of the southwest, no one but the most ultralibs would give a shit.

What are you even talking about? Do you mean southeast? Assuming so, that's funny. That was part of what Russia attempted to offer as a peace plan but Ukraine in its stupidity and belligerence wouldn't hear it and continued to bang the war drum of sending their people into the meat grinder. All the while, Russia has been trying to keep infrastructure intact, minimize civilian casualties, and open corridors for any civilians that want out of the conflict areas.

Do you have any idea how military conflict works?

More than the fucking Russian MOD does, clearly.

That says a lot right there. You literally think you understand military conflict more than the heads of state and military of one of the largest countries in the world, a country that was the heart of the former USSR and that is still using the successful military tactics developed by the USSR. You know who constantly jokes about how dumb all those asiatic orcish hordes of the Russian military are? NAFO. I can tell zero difference between what you're saying here and what the NAFO shills spout. Maybe stick to reddit where you'll be right at home with your fellow conflict-understanders.

I didn't rush all my best equipped troops to the enemy's capital, like the world's dumbest HOI4 player.

Yeah, because you don't understand the concept of a feint and how the USSR used it to great effect. Funny how it turned out really well for Russia. Imagine that. But clearly you know better because you're not, as you say, the world's dumbest HOI4 player. Got it.

I didn't get rolled by a fucking hot dog salesman.

Oh, you're talking about the billionaire Pringles you used earlier to claim Russia was fascist? Make up your mind. Yeah, Russia sure was "rolled" by his cringey attempt at a coup that they bloodlessly put down in 2 days.

I didn't decide to engage in a war of attrition when trying to invade another country, with low support for the war, while my enemy is being supplied by a bunch of other countries.

Low support is support of the entire world except for the US and it's vassal states? And you mean an attrition war that Russia has been consistently winning, to the frothing hysteria of NATO and the US as they keep sending all their military equipment to be easily destroyed by Russia (or diverted long before it reaches the front and sold on the black market to show up in places like the hands of drug cartels)? I honestly can't believe your ignorance on this topic. Is CNN and MSNBC truly the extent of your news consumption?

It's just the exact same fucking shit Russia defenders have been shitting out since day one,

There it is, folks. NAFO was right. Anyone who actually has been following what has been happening is a "Russia defender." All the news that has been posted on the topic on hexbear for the last year and a half was a lie, let's pack up and head back to reddit.

which is that nobody's ever in a position to criticize the russian MOD, and that they're actually secretly geniuses.

What. the. fuck. are you talking about? No one has ever said any of that. Russia is constantly criticized here (but for shit actually deserving of criticism) and no one has ever said they were "geniuses." You're literally just making shit up.

But from where I'm looking

There's the problem. You haven't actually been looking. Just swallowing what you've been told by the MSM. This isn't a snide "gotcha" it is literally true. If you genuinely consider yourself a leftist, but you believe the things you've been saying - this really is the only explanation.

Like, fundamentally, the idea that Russia has actually been competent all along runs into the inevitable problem that Russia is what the chicago boys made it - a broken Kleptocracy. There has been no major reforms, no big fight to actually try to get the mechanisms of state to work for somebody other than the Oligarchs, so you basically just have what the US will become in 50 years.

The US will become a rising economic world power and ally of China that easily withstood all the sanctions put on it by the worlds largest imperialist empire and is fighting and winning a war against said empire? And the US has the support of the global south and nearly every anti-imperialist movement. Wow, nice. I sure didn't predict that. You're also confusing Russia's domestic issues with its military's ability to win a conflict which like so much else of what you said, makes no sense.

There is absolutely no justification for believing that Ukraine is fascist and Russia isn't, unless your justification is solely that you like Russia.

No justification aside from all the ethnic cleansing Ukraine was doing but that Russia hasn't done and doesn't do. I can't believe I'm reading this on hexbear.