It is really distressing, not only because it’s ethically wrong to blame groups of people for individual actions, but also because it’s pragmatically against the interests of the West. We gain nothing by escalating this.
They want Russia out of the way so that they can focus on taking down China. Most of all they want to avoid a Russia-China military alliance.
Russia can de-escalate by withdrawing. The only way for 'the west' to de-escalate at this point is to tell Ukraine to just roll over and get annexed. Is that preferable?
And once Russia controls Ukraine, then what? Everybody's happy, and they'll just leave it at that? What is Putin's goals after Ukraine?
I'll admit I'm not educated in international politics, I've just pivoted from an armchair virologist to an armchair politician / military expert on the internets.
Having studied this situation a bit, my conclusion is that both sides are to blame, with Russia being considerably more culpable due to choosing the violent option. Geopolitics isn’t simple and thinking that one side is entirely to blame is just naive and falling for propaganda.
By escalation I’m referring to the giant effort to exclude Russia from everything, including liquor stores and name registrars.
Oh they sure did, and all of them were of the militaristic and imperialistic variety.
> Having studied this situation a bit, my conclusion is that both sides are to blame
How can Ukraine/the West possibly be responsible for Russia launching an imperialistic annexation war? Nothing can excuse that.
Again, as I said in my initial comment, most of the blame here is on Russia. Nonetheless, the world isn’t black and white.
Russia is not justified, which is why there has been such unification in the West and silence from Russia's powerful allies. Putin made a mistake.
The Russian narrative swings from fear of future deployments of American missiles in Ukraine, as if nuclear ballistic submarines can't show up in the Bering sea in a matter of days. And de-nazifaction as if the Kremlin regime is a pillar of freedom and democracy.
Both arguments are rather flimsy at best. It looks to me the main issue is Ukraine's democracy, it looks like the Kremlin cannot tolerate bordering a democracy not run by some kind of autocratic vassal.
It kind of make sense since there is a large Russian/Russian-speaking community in Ukraine. What the Kremlin can't tolerate is a neighbor with greener grass on their side of the fence. Because if the Russian people witnessed a blooming economy and growth in Ukraine after the popular deposition of their then Russian-adjacent president, they might get ideas. So days after the event Russia invaded crimea and labeled the Ukrainian government Nazis.
Simply because the Russian people had to see that popular revolutions only lead to misery.
Sure, you can advocate using the Winter War robbery of East Carelia and Vyborg from the independent democratic nation of Finland as a model if you want. Two questions about that, though:
1) How much did that help? Didn't exactly sate the Soviet Union's appetite for acquisition and oppression of satellite states, did it?
2) Advocating an appeasement model seems (at least to me) to imply endorsement not only of the temporary calm it might buy, but also of its moral and ethical justice. Care to expound on how you do that?