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Because they have chosen to fight. They can surrender whenever they feel like it. But until they do, they ought to enjoy the full support of people who also don't like wars of aggression prosecuted upon them.
The traditional response to an insult is reprisal, not submission. Indeed, they've probably got very little to lose and everything to gain by continuing to fight.
If Russia is able to win all conflicts by threatening a world war, they're going to spread unchecked. The hell with that, I say. Waiting for the apocalypse is exhausting.
Yes
I cannot speak for everyone supporting Ukraine but that always seemed like a distraction. The reason I want to see Russia get spanked is the arsenal of nuclear weapons they maintain trained at me. They're the guy robbing my convenience store at gunpoint; if they go down in a hail of cop gunfire after stealing a car that's just as well.
Even more of the Russian armed forces taken out of commission. Like 2x what we've seen so far. Perhaps 5x. Russia withdrawing from Ukraine. Putin replaced with someone who's more interested in increasing Russia's GDP than square miles.
Is there a strong reason to believe that Putin is the glue holding together the federation?
The irony when the support comes in the forms of billions dollars of aid and weapons from the American militaro-industrial complex.
A reasonable border conflict, similar to the Cuban missiles crisis.
Again, there's a whole series of convenience store robberies you haven't looked at if Russia is the main perp in your eyes.
Not going to happen unless Russia is destroyed. Having a de facto NATO protectorate on your border is a matter of life or death for Russia.
Russia's GDP is square miles. Square miles of resource-rich land, that Russians have been doing quite a good job at keeping under control, compared to say the West in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Historical precedent. You know what you lose, you don't know what you gain.
How well did the Arab Spring go for liberal democracy in North Africa and the Middle East?
That's...just kinda what happens in modern war? The biggest industrial player gets to budge the needle at their whim. You might as well complain about American industry in WWI (which I wouldn't mind, necessarily! The Danish had the right idea back then, IMO).
The irony of claiming 'people who also don't like wars of aggression prosecuted upon them.' who are the very people prosecuting wars of aggression against every one else in the last few decades.
Take out Putin and you might make the Ukraine slightly safer, the rest of Russia probably not safer.
Take out the shadow cabinet of Biden, the boards of all NATO weapon manufacturers and you make the whole world a lot safer... probably.
I'm an American. The proliferation of America's military power does not threaten me. Quite the opposite. Russia's different. It makes far more sense to side with my country against the one that has a button press intended to destroy it.
This all comes off as a distraction anyway. But I think even independent of my pro-America bias, it's very hard to spin the US as being as destructive of an influence as Russia. Far harder to defend the victim's of America's "wars of aggression," at least.
If Zelensky had tried to assassinate Putin's dad and recently invaded a neighbor and had a history of using chemical weapons on his people, I probably would be far more sympathetic to Russia than I am.
Removing the US from the equation seems like a great idea if you want China and Russia to be more dominant forces for some reason. A stance that makes sense for citizens of those countries, but not many others. There are probably a lot of people in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia who would disagree that this military industrial shadow cabinet is a threat to their safety as they buy their hellfire missiles.
So you do not identify with the BLM crowd 'hands up don't shoot' or the J6 protesters 'please stop detaining me without a trial'?
What about Rittenhouse? Good boy watching his neighborhood or one of these evil gun-havers that needs to be disarmed by the military kicking down everybody's door?
Hard to argue with that. We can start with Russia never dropping nukes on 2 cities full of civilians perhaps.
Non sequitur.
In the US? You know they've all got guns at home right. They're not going to kick down their own doors.
Russia practiced total war same as everyone else. You really think they wouldn't have used nukes if they had them?
All I'm saying is that they are a lot of Americans that believe that the militarization of American police is a bad thing.
Joe Biden for example:
"Surplus military equipment for law enforcement? They don't need that," Biden continued. "The last thing you need is an up-armored Humvee coming into the neighborhood, it is like the military invading, they don't know anybody, they become the enemy. They're supposed to be protecting these people."
According to many people, the proliferation of America's military power is directly harming them.
Another aspect is the mental health crisis for veterans, who make up a significant share of the homeless on American streets.
They've had them and not used them. Their track record is much better than America's.
Which has jack diddly squat to do with the discussion. Armed forces and police are separate entities. What does that have to do with Ukraine?
The consequences for using nukes now is different from the consequences of using nukes then. They're still shelling cities with conventional weapons, with the expected results. 'We didn't use nukes to destroy Bakhmut, just conventional weapons!' isn't an impressive humanitarian boast.
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