What about building up their own country in stead of attack other ones? Why is there need to be an empire? Why is there a need to conquer Kyiv? You know what is is: superpower wannabe madness.
Ukraine is obviously not just another country, that's ridiculous for the Russian case. Its not like Poland or even the Baltic states. That's a completely different ballpark.
The other issue: Who says they want to conquer Kiev to occupy it? If they do, they only do it, because the Selenski regime refuses to negotiate in a serious and accountable manner. The Selenski regime, with the Ukrainian oligarchs and the USA in the background, purged the country, did indoctrinate it in an anti-Russian, hostile way and the country was supposed to become weaponised against Russia by the USA. That's just what happened.
This conflict is not about being megalomaniac, or being cruel, or whatever, its about concrete security, economical and friendly minorities interests. To blame it all on Putin and "wannabe madness": That's crazy.
There were plenty of peaceful options, for both sides, to solve that conflict, but Ukraine, not Russia, did refuse them all.
It was the free will of the Ukrainians to choose a route to Europe in stead of Russia.
You mean after billions of money flew into the country for propaganda, the oligarchs and the US services manipulated the public and the Ukrainian government purged the country from opposing views?
I don't mind the Ukrainians to choose their route to Europe, but not that way, not in these borders. Should the Western and Central Ukrainians, which are primarily behind these plans, and want it, go, but leave the pro-Russian East behind. Simple as that.
And I can imagine that I guess the liberal democratic concept is more attractive than Putin/Dugin's alternative. But free will of a country is not permitted....
I don't care for countries. Countries are just pieces of land. I care for people. And if the people in the East, especially those in Donbas and Crimea, prefer to join Russia, they should be able to do so. Its not even a Russian suppresion or force, rather, they liberated them from an Ukrainian state they didn't wanted to be part of.
Of course, I would have preferred a truly free and democratic Ukraine, in which the people could have decided, on their own, and region by region, what they want to do. Without the pressure from Kiev, without the pressure from Moscow. But the massive manipulation in the Ukraine by the oligarchs, the Selenski regime and the USA, as well as in Donbas the takeover of pro-Russians, prevented that in both areas, it was, unfortunately, never a real option.
It should have been, because
I'm all for the right of self-determination for a people in such a situation. It would be, in any case, being preferable to fight this out with all the losses and victims. As things are, the Ukrainian parts which are clearly pro-Western and anti-Russian by now should have the right to go their way, but they should leave the East alone and with Russia. That's by far the best solution for all sides. Its about people, not "a state".
And liberation, denazification, and unification with a brother folk (even the same folk) has ended in: who cares bomb the shit out of them.
If snipers hide in a building, the building gets levelled. That's the rule of war, its no cruelty as an end in itself, its no genocide, its no deliberate attack on civilians, like the American propaganda claims. You can see the Russians helping the civilians and bringing them food etc., once they got "liberated" and an area being secured, militarily. The acts you are talking about are the results of intensive fighting and the Ukrainians using civilian structures as their hideout and fighting base.
To use that against the idea of ethnic brotherhood and what else, these necessities of war, is just obscene. It doesn't contradict anything.
An appartment block with artillery at its feet and dozens of snipers on its floors is a military target, whether there are civilians inside of it or close by, or not. That's nothing the Russians choose, its this sort of urban warfare. So far I have not heard of a single proven case in which the Russians deliberately, intentionally, killed innocent ethnic Russian civilians.
There is a new movie on World War II, the British trying to destroy the GESTAPO headquarter in Kopenhagen. You know what they hit instead? A school. The allies killed and destroyed a lot of civilians in World War II, deliberately, intentionally, but in this case, it was an accident.
Operation Carthage, on
21 March 1945, was a British air raid on
Copenhagen,
Denmark during the
Second World War which killed 145 civilians. The target of the raid was the
Shellhus, the Gestapo headquarters in the city centre. It was used for the storage of dossiers and the torture of Danish citizens during interrogations. The Danish Resistance had long asked the British to conduct a raid against the site. The building was destroyed, 18 prisoners were freed and Nazi anti-resistance activities were disrupted.[1] Part of the raid was mistakenly directed against a nearby school; the raid caused 125 civilian deaths (including 86 schoolchildren and 18 adults at the school).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Carthage
You think the Russians can prevent any such accidents from happening?
The USA weren't able to do it, anywhere, with their precision guided material, under much better and more safe (for them) circumstances. That's just war itself. Its no war crime, its no genocide, its urban warfare as such which causes this.
With three cheers from the Alps! Because those poor Putin was treated so badly. It's such a friendly, mild, person....so threatened badly by the Americans and Europeans. They made a devil out of him, but he had only good aims....come on Riverman dream on.
He worked for the legitimate Russian interests. That's what he did, that's what he does. Its not bad, its not good, its the way it is, and people which can think, can predict some outcomes and reactions. The American arrogance, primarily the American, not the European, led to the alienation of Russia from the West. That was unnecessary, it was preventable, it was stupid.
I'm not saying Putin is such a great man or always doing right, he doesn't, and we know he can become brutal. But he, usually, tried to achieve legitimate, limited goals, for the Russian state and people, for the Russian interests. Oftentimes the "minimal approach" I'd say. The way the USA and Biden in particular mistreated him, at a time he was still open to talks and cooperation, is a complete failure and disgrace to the arrogant US diplomacy. Its inexcusable and it will fall back on the USA big time. The United States will regret it. Probably even Biden lives long enough to regret it.