Kiev already broke the Minsk Agreements that were meant to solve the issues of Ukrainian armament and oppression of ethnic Russians. There’s only so many times you can deliberately break international agreements before nobody takes you seriously. The Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics broke away a decade ago, and have been at war since.

As for Russia, what they gain is security. When diplomacy fails, they are taking the millitant route. I ask you, if this is for “vainglory,” why limit it to the Donbass region? Russia has proven capable of fighting an attrition war that Ukraine cannot, why not go for other areas in Europe? The narrative that Putin just wants to restart the Russian Empire, as though he wants to become the Tsar, is ridiculous. Not only is the Russian population benefiting massively from strengthened ties with China, it’s populace increasingly favors socialism over capitalism:

There’s no “meat grinder” here, Russia has been strengthened economically, and appears to be meeting its stated goals. There’s no backing to the “empire” narrative, of Russian conquest of Europe.

Yea, it’s ridiculous. Just pure bloodthirst.

Exactly, lmao!

Like, I can empathize with the anti-war crowd. Why on Earth do they keep saying Russia can turn around and stop? That doesn’t make any sense, they have the means to continue and their goals still haven’t been met, so the war is going to continue until they are. Shouldn’t the anti-war crowd desire a swift surrender from Ukraine to minimize further bloodshed?

Do you really think the Russo-Ukrainian war is about “glory” and “vanity?” Russia has the upper-hand, they aren’t going to pack their bags and leave before their demands are met, namely the oblasts, NATO neutrality, and for Kiev to stop oppressing ethnic Russians living in Ukraine.

Kinda? You can find videos of any car catching on fire, what matters is how they compare at a statistical level with their competition to see if they are doing better or worse, not evidence that at minimum failure rates are nonzero. I truly don’t trust China Watchers to produce anything meaningful or useful.

I don’t think linking a “China watcher” that exclusively makes videos on how China is going to collapse any minute now going back years is good evidencd.

In a space dominated by leftists, using “libs” as shorthand for the general right-wingers dominating the west is fine.

Can you give an example?

Why not? He’s fairly popular.

Maduro won the election, and the US tried to manufacture consent to overturn it.

She also donated the award to Trump and asked him to invade to overthrow the democratically elected socialist leadership.

Incredible, it’s more predictable than a Marvel movie.

She gave the award to Trump and asked him to invade, lmao.

Absolute clownshow of an org.

Yet another example of the Nobel prize being used to further the interests of imperialism. Usually it’s to whitewash war criminals like Kissinger, or in this case to justify imperialist regime change in Venezuela against the will of the people.

Welcome back, Margaret Thatcher.

Israel is lashing out emotionally now that they’ve lost public support. Pathetic, may the entity crumble to dust and Palestine be free.

They don’t have to either. If they feel that they need to, they can do so, which is the important takeaway.

Cash doesn’t build nukes, labor, machinery, and raw materials do. Russia has enough of both, they can just print more money if they need to.

The majority of the population support the SMO, and even Putin is trying to appeal to soviet nostalgia in order to retain support. It’s a situation where people are unhappy with capitalism, long for socialism, but at the same time support their country in the Russo-Ukrainian War and support ties to socialist countries like Cuba, the PRC, and DPRK. There is opposition to Putin, of course, but it’s more of a case where the nationalists are critically supported and the nationalists have to appeal to the Russian left somewhat in order to not collapse. It’s an interesting dillema!