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I've banged this drum for a while, so excuse me for repeating myself, but...
What are the Ukrainian people afraid of, being conquered by Russia? I mean I understand the process of being conquered is violent and deadly, but post surrender, what are they afraid of? Their government is already among the most corrupt governments in the world, and their "Democracy" was already a proxy battle between Russian and USA color revolutions for most of their lifetimes. If they stuck with Western Europe their Jewish President will just adopt a program of flooding them with 3rd worlders as "Replacement Migration" and they'd be ethnically cleansed inside 50 years anyways. The only hope the Ukrainian people have of surviving as a people as opposed to a label on a map is with Russia.
It, frankly, blows my damned mind that European leaders will let virtually every nation on Earth walk all over them, colonize their lands, commit mass rapes, murders, terrorism and ethnic cleansing, but somehow Russia's action are a step too far. There are nearly less English left in London than their are Ukrainians left in Kiev. What's been the greater crime?
What if world leaders just put on blinders, and let Russian people drive all the way to Kiev without firing a shot? What if they told fictions about how they are just immigrants looking for a better life? How dare you accuse them of having dual loyalties? They're perfectly capable of it. It's what they've been doing the last 50 years.
I don't think Ukrainians, outside of the max. 3% or so actual nazis (effective as they may be as a fighting force), care for "surviving as a people". The only thing they are fighting, and willingly taking a 50% chance to die, for is the hope of "becoming part of the West", either by uplift like Poland or Estonia, or by emigration once the borders open. Generally, it may be hard for a Westerner who spends all day every day seething about the state of their country to understand just to what extent post-Soviet people, especially relatively poor ones, idolize life in the West. (Maybe take in this prophetic music video for vibes.)
My experience with actual Ukrainians(and this is a biased sample but it is mostly the equivalent of normies, not actual Nazis) is that they do care about surviving as a people, and that that people is, to their mind at least, very different from Russia. Whether there's actually much of a difference or not probably depends on where exactly in Ukraine; Galicia at least is a lot more central European and less east Slavic in comparison.
In what context did you encounter those Ukrainians? Those who have made it all the way to America don't really count, since they have already safely made it to the West and probably are more subject to American memes (which would have you proudly wear the culture of distant ancestors like an Aztec warrior wears a jaguar skin).
(I don't deeply know any Western Ukrainians, but have talked to some of the refugees who are all over Europe now and overheard the conversations of many more. Of course having fled does bias the sample, too.)
Mostly UGCC members, but American residents who speak Ukrainian(not Russian or Surshik) at home. I'll be the first to admit this is a biased pool towards anti-Russian hardcore nationalists, but I also remember them liking Assad for middle-eastern Christian reasons, which points to less influence on their views by the US media and state department.
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