Red Hat is discontinuing sales and services in Russia and Belarus
redhat.com
redhat.com
I consider these companies backing out of Russia just pragmatic: by getting out, at the very least you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches in the near future, avoid the risk of any negative publicity “because you’re still doing business with Russia!”, and also generate some positive publicity around all this.
The real panic would be about China. On the surface, it seems like they're getting a break from being painted as the evil force bent on destroying our heroes, but companies that are there can't give up being there. I look forward to the furious PR wave from industry trying to separate China from Russia, and the fake insider stories about how Chinese officials are worried about Russia's latest move. Just recently, Maduro got promoted to being president again*, so there's a lot to be gained while the US PR hate cannon is fully pointed at Russia.
* https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220307-us-envoys-hel...
What you're basically saying is that companies are acting in accordance with certain moral values, even though they don't intrinsically have those moral values. That's great news! That's downright fantastic! Instilling "true" morality is a difficult problem. We have bypassed that problem and gotten the same observable results by replacing it with a much simpler one.
Corporations are supposed to be automata that optimize an objective function. External pressure was applied, via both sanctions and public sentiment, and behold! Their behavior changed. The sanctions had the effect that was intended. That's better than you could say for many other policies.
I don't think this decision is good (not selling to Russians) but we can imagine much worse decisions that follow from companies yielding to, say, social pressure.
Government sanctions are applied by a democratically-elected government, which has a variety of checks and balances in it. I agree that social pressure can go off the rails. In this particular case my gut is that social pressure is encouraging them to go along with the sanctions quickly and enthusiastically.
Is Red Hat responding to sanctions? I don't think so:
> (from the link) While relevant sanctions must guide many of our actions, we’ve taken additional measures as a company. Effective immediately, Red Hat is discontinuing sales and services in Russia and Belarus (for both organizations located in or headquartered in Russia or Belarus). This includes discontinuing partner relationships with organizations based in or headquartered in Russia or Belarus.
What we're seeing is the social outrage machine taking its turn at geopolitics. We'll see how that goes but I am not optimistic.
I don't think any of this helps Ukraine but I'm more worried about the precedent it sets.
Second, "social outrage machine" is a pretty ridiculous characterization. You're painting this as if it's some Twitter mob upset about a minor grievance as opposed to the reality that a hostile country is committing war crimes.
Even if this is true, is it a good thing? Do we want sanctions that make it impossible to do business with a Russian citizen or company? Do we want companies to go beyond government sanctions?
> Second, "social outrage machine" is a pretty ridiculous characterization. You're painting this as if it's some Twitter mob upset about a minor grievance as opposed to the reality that a hostile country is committing war crimes.
It has not been established that Russia has committed war crimes. The social pressure brought to bear has the character of a twitter mob, it's as thoughtful, and I worry the consequences will be similar (bad).
There's something to be said for ratcheting up sanctions slowly. If you go all-in at once, the country being sanctioned has no incentive to change their behavior. There's also something undeniably weird about companies interfering in international relations.
I couldn't disagree more strongly. Russia is murdering thousands of people per day. Every day, including today. This is not the time for plodding deliberation. Quick action has the possibility of saving millions of homes and thousands of lives.
The cause of the sanctions is crystal clear. If Russia wants the sanctions to end they need to stop invading another country and murdering its citizens.
> There's also something undeniably weird about companies interfering in international relations.
Cutting off business relations is exactly how sanctions work. This happens both through explicit rules and implicit ones. Companies err on the side of leaving the sanctioned country to avoid compliance headaches, the risk of accidentally violating sanctions, and to avoid funding a murderous dictator.
All of this is a normal and expected part of how sanctions work.
In my experience this is exactly the kind of rhetoric that leads to large mistakes.
This whole climate reminds me of post-9/11. Hope it goes better this time.
Hyperbole sounds good but what about sanctions on nations carrying out all the other military operations bombing people presently with US arms and even military assistance ? (Saudi bombing Yemen for some years now)
They've been accused of multiple war crimes within a period of a few days.
Of course, from the perspective of neoclassical economics, it is true, and of course, there are obligations to shareholders. But generally, I think it is great that corporations are not automata that optimize an objective function. Corporations are social organizations, and I think it roughly holds that the harder the problem is that a corporation is solving for some business purpose, the more space it needs to give for social aspects. It's not that all of management thinks about profit optimization from morning to evening.
If you have two companies A and B, where A maximizes profits, and B perhaps cares about profits but also has other goals, which company will grow faster, making the other less and less relevant?
Therefore I think a company's purpose is to maximize profits, and society's purpose is to make "good behavior" the most profitable.
This is not to say that it's impossible for a company to follow some moral goals and therefore become stronger due to the marketing power of such conduct, or high employee morale. What I want to say, that it would benefit our society if we worked out mechanisms that make it predictable and gather precedents to convince investors to such behaviors.
Paperclips Inc will now extract the iron in your blood in order to maximize the number of paperclips it can produce. No hard feelings.
Without sanctions, corporations could be competing over who would supply the Russian army with uniforms if the ROI was there.
But then again, maybe US is the most "moral" country in the world, since nobody ever pulls out of the US for US foreign policy/military aggression. /s
I want a Venn diagram of people who endorse this kind of economic system and five minutes later tweet about how AI alignment risk is the biggest problem humanity faces
Personally I read it as description of the mechanics behind corporate decision making and the possibility that for many companies this might be both ethically and financially a good move
By the way,this is not a "bug" of capitalism, it's a bug of people mindlessly not caring about the ramifications of their own choices and decisions, which is nowadays everything and every action being subjected to pay for/sell.
Also, I hate virtue signalling, but at the same time one could argue getting rich, making money throughout all means, it's also a "signalling" of some sorts, especially in US. Now whether or not making money is considered a virtue, that's a more complicated subject.
Some of the arguments I mentioned above I consider "incorrect" in the sense that they shouldn't affect a moral person, but still I decided to list them.
That sounds very possible, but not very advisable.
On the other hand, if you completely ignore tensions and keep up the supply in the case of war, interdependence ceases to be a deterrent at all. The real problem here is that somebody started a war; the isolationism is just one of the many bad consequences.
We will always have global trade.
Or maybe it's showing that it indeed is quite optimal to rely on other countries for your crucial infrastructure - it's just not advisable to anger those countries by breaking international treaties and committing war crimes?
Having to resign from this optimal strategy and isolating yourself is exactly the war deterrent that sanctions are supposed to achieve.
If you told me I use OSS on a daily basis that has some sort of malicious code that slipped though the cracks, I'd believe it just due to the shear amount of code running on any machine.
To the comment below :
>everyone becomes poorer it will slow as people simply won't be able to afford to leave
the things have worked in opposite way - the brain drain of 199x slowed by ~2003/5 as economic situation improved until 2014/5 when it started to pickup again. Of course visa issues and potential "iron curtain", etc. will affect it.
Or are they even able to - are there increased visa restrictions yet?
I assume that all contracts have some force majeure actions baked in.
In other words: Russian businesses are just f**ed. The only option is - build your own tools, or use only russian based tools, services, etc - or go back to doing things in excel spreadsheets and paper/pen.
I mean this most literally - even calling what's going on in Ukraine right now an "invasion" is already a crime in Russia.
In a way it's good – people in these situations will flock to more resilient systems.
For those wondering this would also mean that Russia doesn't have to care about GPL anymore, obviously.
[0] Which is something I'd be actually optimistic about if this wasn't happening in, well... Russia.
How?
It's not a perfect way to block open source, but in practice it could be done and would mostly "work". The chilling effect and collateral damage would be massive though.
Now, you might wonder why that matters - surely, China is the one enforcing copyright and patent law, right? They could just pretend America didn't say that. Except if they do that, then they're in violation of WIPO/TRIPS, and every country in the world is going to ban their exports.
FOSS relies entirely on copyright law in order to work and be legal, and Americans and Europeans write a lot of FOSS, so the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, and the EU 27 collectively pull the strings here. If you don't have those licenses in place, not only could any contributor go rogue and start suing; the US itself would have standing to sue on behalf of it's citizens (i.e. to get products banned from international trade).
As a practical example of this, GitHub had to fight tooth-and-nail just to get a sanctions exemption so that Iranian software developers could rejoin the rest of the world.
[0] AFAIK Huawei is shipping their own AOSP fork now, and that's currently allowed; but I still maintain that the US could have banned them from that, too.
Sorry if I'm pedantic here, but you can sanction them more. Not only that, but the more "evil" Russia becomes, the more it drags its allies down and demotivates them to continue friendly relations with them.
Russia is at the ocean floor but it can also hear knocking from the bottom.
> It can also trade with China to survive
These statements are at very much at odds with each other. They might be able to squeeze some money out of Europe now, but if the relationship isn't mended with blinding speed then Europe is going to move away from Russian energy permanently. This situation would turn Russia into a Chinese vassal state.
It's a bipolar world though, you're either a vassal of the US or China. I don't know of any country which isn't a vassal to any of these too, except for Syria and Iran who are vassal states of Russia. And Cuba to some extent. Still being able to survive without the US is pretty anti-fragile.
Becoming a Chinese client state would be a massive failure for him.
Russia GDP is like Spain, it's not that developed either. It's mostly gaz and wheat, this can be diverted to China, though at a discount of course. Still enough to survive.
Haven't the past weeks revised everyone's opinion on that point? They're having tremendous logistical issues within a relatively short driving distance from their own borders.
They've got a lot of old Soviet hardware they can sell designs for, and already have e.g. in the case of China and their first aircraft carrier. But that won't last, and China's already ahead of them in some areas (including carriers).
Having to scramble for an unexpected war is 10x harder and more complicated.
Large militaries are also very expensive. Right now it's looking like Russia is going to have a very hard time funding their current apparratus.
I have little doubt that they'll eventually defeat Ukraine's military forces if that's the goal, but a serious world power should have run them over in a matter of days.
- Russia is using a small fraction of its firepower, according to expert reports I've seen.
- The reason, contrary to what we may all think in the West, may be that they are actually trying to avoid looking too evil with the whole world watching. Could they throw a tsar bomb in Kiev and be done with it? Probably, but the rest of the world wouldn't like that at all.
- They were unsure how the West would respond, and may believe that military retaliation was a possibility, so they decided to keep their big guns at home and "probe" Ukraine more slowly.
- They may be intentionally "hiding" their capabilities in order to keep an element of surprise when it really needs it (in Ukraine or if the fight escalates, with Western powers).
- Alternatively, of course, they may be just incompetent, which for some reason is what the West is thinking. Maybe that's what they want you to think?
Yes, I know they're still killing people, but it's not a main goal of this invasion - if it was, they'd be shelling indiscriminately from a distance, something they are capable of.
If their plan worked, to quickly come in and replace the UA government, I'm pretty sure no one would give a shit. "Just another day in Eastern Europe". A few sanctions and move on.
Thanks to Ukrainian resistance, which I believe took everyone by surprise, Europe and the US actually started some serious action against Russia.
Their ground forces are definitely incompetent and underequipped, imo.
I hope it doesn't escalate.
No.
That wasn't the goal, so this isn't terribly surprising.
Russia depending entirely on China in almost every aspect makes Russia super-fragile. Now China dictates prices. And why should those prices be high? Is it really in China's interest to help Russia?
They still need food, energy, shelter, and security.
Just thinking about how far the pendulum can swing before it becomes immoral for other reasons.
But the West is too afraid to fight. So it'll keep pushing for sanctions, which it can later point at and say, "see, we did something!"
We're doing that. We're letting loose "one of the largest and fastest arms transfers in history" [1]. What we're avoiding is military intervention.
Because, in one part, nukes. And because, in another part, the clear red line that is NATO membership.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-members-mount-huge-operati...
If only... If only we would just cave, maybe everything would be fine (I don't know).
At least it's not clear that fighting will solve anything.
And all this talk about NATO being the "red line" is not particularly believable in context, either - I sincerely doubt that, if Russia threatens e.g. Latvia, US would be willing to risk escalation then if it doesn't do so now.
South Korea is bravely defending from North Korea, though with great losses. Not a day passes by without a tragic report of civilians bombed in their homes, or attacked during an evacuation from a sieged city. Sanctions against North Korea just don't work, we have to finally gather an army to invade North Korea and end this dragging war.
Not really. There is a fast strategy and a slow strategy.
The fast strategy aims to convince elites to change course. If Putin withdraws, he gets his economy back. That's unlikely here; the real targets are e.g. his generals.
The slow strategy is about degrading capability. The slow strategy is a worst-case option for when the fast strategy fails. Smaller economies power smaller war machines. Brain drain, industrial decay and material shortages make unmanageable threats less potent.
They also undermine the appeal of popular uprising. External pressure tends to bring people together, which in this case means tolerating eroding freedoms in exchange for security. And starving, broken people don't revolt. When we deploy long-term sanctions, we're putting a nation in international quarantine. For a nuclear state run by a lunatic, that makes sense. (For e.g. Cuba, Iran or Venezuela, I find it deplorable.)
Hmm, lets ask the North Koreans!
Sanctions don't make a better world, but it's better than bombs.
We can also try another "Russian Reset", I think both Bush and Obama did a "Russian Reset" with Putin.
If we don't want Russia to have a powerful military, sanctions is the least evil tool we have.
For me one of those would be to deny someone food and water from my own surplus.
I understand that RedHat consulting is not the same, but as I see more and more companies pull out I wonder how long it will be until it's wheat, insulin, medical devices etc? The russian citizenry are not (directly) responsible for Putins insanity, nor for being brainwashed by state media.
Yet, that didn't make us ease sanctions significantly. Did it?
My point being: things can probably get very bad in Russia before we ease sanctions due to humanitarian concerns.
Yes, it's a tragedy. Hopefully, all of this ends before it gets that far.
One could equally flip that. Did famines and sanctions make them our allies? No, it hasn't.
Sanctions won't make them surrender, or make them our friends.
It'll just make the poor.
The only good thing sanctions against North Korea did was:
1. Make their army poorly maintained,
2. Discourage others from doing similar tricks.
I'm not even sure we were successful at (2).
they are and alot of them still support both Putin and this "special operation"
I have a hard time blaming people for doing exactly what their environment programs them to.
Your words not mine, I do love Russian people and the culture but Putin cult of personality is sick it makes the whole of society rotten. Russian people are not naive they need to understand they are being brainwashed and stand up for themselves, they could in the times of Perestrojka and can do it now.
They didn't and they most probably won't. Perestroika was a top-down change, not some kind of a people's revolution, they just rode the wave.
That attitude puts you in an abusive relationship. Reminds me how my brother would ask me for money to pay for his next car loan installment, and when I would help him, he would spend his money on entertainment.
Or like in situational jokes in comedies: two guys order a beer, guy A drinks a beer. Guy B wants to drink a beer, but is stopped by guy A: "this is mine beer, yours was the one I already drunk".
In other words, Russia has the resources to feed its people. But if Russia decides to spend the resources on building nuclear warheads, we shouldn't help its citizens with food.
And yes, I'm aware it's less about giving the food for free and more about selling it. But there are other resources than money: if Russia is unable to secure food for itself, this is because the government has diverted attention (being another resource) to something else like military efforts.
We're not sanctioning a small, heavily populated island. To the contrary. Russians have a lot of time to prepare food reserves.
It kinda helps that their country is the major exporter of the first two. Not sure about construction materials, but it seems that whatever is missing will be readily supplied by China in exchange for the first two.
So do the Ukrainians, is Putin affording them that?
But I think it's rare there is a tradeoff there, little reason we cannot do both (continue subsistence trade with aggressor, provide humanitarian aid as we're able to defender)
"Continuing trade with the aggressor" is telling the aggressor they can continue the slaughter of civilians in Ukraine with little consequences. That's immoral and unacceptable.
All the aggressor has to do stop sanctions and businesses boycotting the aggressor is to stop the slaughter of Ukrainians and get out of Ukraine, it's pretty simple.
That would definitely expose them to hacking and malware and hurt them big time.
Then again, that could probably push every user in Russia to use a VPN to get their updates.
If software companies decide to suspend sales to Russia, then they might have to resort to piracy and possibly miss out on OS updates.
Is there a reason why not?
I have many Russian customers, but neither my Chinese nor UAE banks will accept any transfers from Russia (not to even mention western banks). My business is not directly affected by sanctions, the banks just don’t have sufficient risk appetite to touch Russian money.
Best offer I’ve seen was from a partner which offered to take Russian transfers to a Kyrgyzstani bank account and send me USDT.
Perhaps such sanctions would be unnecessary? Perhaps they’re just on the way.
2. Updates are way overhyped.
LPE? Those are a dime in a dozen.
Nobody cares about home users, it’s businesses which this hurts.
But yeah, media is garbage and people will overhype anything.
"WTF I love online activation DRM now!"
Having said that, I bet Microsoft knows which licenses are owned by the Russian government specifically.
Hindrance of aggression by the Russian government.... by wrecking their economy. Yes, the Russian people, being the economy, are the target, unavoidably.
you've just described almost exactly Russia in the 1990's.
So honestly yeah I'm not seeing an amazing end state with this "let's punish the Russian people so they overthrow their government" strategy. In 1917 they did and got a bloody civil war. In 1991 they did that and had years of civil instability and an economic crisis. What makes people think in 2022 it would be better?
The west has drawn the line in the sand at military intervention and at some point we have to draw this line.
My read of the hivemind sentiments on that would be "Russia has no justification to do that!" Whether popular memes are substantial protection from nuclear weapons seems questionable, but it seems to be overwhelming consensus opinion that this is the way to think about such things so who knows.
What's that saying, when everyone's thinking the same, nobody's thinking?
Sanctions can work too well. After the US embargoed all oil to imperial Japan their navy calculated they only had fuel left for two years, which led to the attack of Pearl Harbor.
Is it? Or is the goal to turn the people of Russia against the Russian government for putting them into this position, perhaps even triggering regime change.
Therefore, I believe there's reason to believe the West willingly allowed Russia to enter this war, perhaps with exact this goal: causing Russia to go broke (similar to what happened to the USSR in Afghanistan, which was also assisted heavily by the West at the time) over a gigantic conflict (and sanctions), forcing a regime change in Russia, finally, at the cost of a totally destroyed Ukraine. Maybe the West thought the cost (thousands of Ukrainians and Russian dead, two destroyed economies, another generation of people who can't trust their neighbours anymore, increased military spending) was acceptable?
Conspiracy theories aside, avoiding war at all costs by capitulating to the aggressor's demands without a fight is not a sustainable approach.
Sure, Russia was strongly and publicly opposed to Ukraine joining NATO, to the point of threatening war over it… but that isn't their decision to make. Russia is still the unjustified invader here and the only one at fault—not Ukraine for seeking NATO membership or the other NATO members for considering the application.
It feels like you are trying mental gymnastics to give a pass to a country starting a war. Russia is to blame, full stop. Russia should have no say in how Ukraine wants to move forward or the alliances they want to make. Russia is free to voice their concerns or better yet, provide better assurances and protection to Ukraine than what NATO could offer. Instead, they invaded. No one is at fault for that other than Russia.
My point is simple: Ukraine should've done what Sweden is doing and strategically make sure its territory is safe while at the same time avoiding direct confrontation with other nations. Ukraine and NATO failed to do so and we're now seeing the result of their miscalculation. Of course Russia is to blame as well, as they're the ones that Ukraine was trying to defend against, I'm not claiming otherwise.
Even though the NATO-Ukraine story goes back to 1992, let's look at the events leading up to the war:
On 8 June 2017, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada passed a law making integration with NATO a foreign policy priority (https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/427216.html).
On 14 September 2020, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky approved Ukraine's new National Security Strategy, "which provides for the development of the distinctive partnership with NATO with the aim of membership in NATO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations... ).
09 Feb 2021 - Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed during Prime Minister Shmyhal's visit to Brussels that Ukraine is a candidate for NATO membership (https://www.kmu.gov.ua/news/premyer-ministr-ta-gensek-nato-o...)
24 March 2021 - Ukraine announces measures to take back Crimea from Russia (https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3214479-zelensky-e...)
25 March 2021 - Russia starts military operations near Ukraine's border (which would lead to the war, almost one year later).
It's also relevant to notice that the Euromaidan protests in early 2014 were sparked by the then Pro-Russian Governement in Ukraine decision to move away from NATO and the EU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan) under pressure from Russia... that Russia had strongly opposed NATO membership by Ukraine should be crystal clear. That the new Ukrainian Government's decision to antagonize Russia and pursue as strongly as possible membership of NATO should also be crystal clear... hence my point that Ukraine behaved irresponsibly with regards to avoid Russian agression, ironically, while trying to prevent exactly that.
Or in fewer words, your blaming of the victim. Don't act as if it wasn't entirely Russia's choice to invade, without any comparable provocation. It's not Ukraine's job to placate Russia. Avoiding Russian aggression is Russia's job. There is no guarantee that Russia wouldn't have invaded anyway even if Ukraine didn't pursue NATO membership. (The threat of this is why they wanted to join NATO in the first place.)
Well, yes. Who is to blame for the sanctions being applied on Russia now? Russia, the victim maybe? Can I blame the victim sometimes when their actions directly lead to a terrible outcome that's bad for everyone?
Now, if you want to go down the more philosophical road, people tend to be more morally ok with not feeling for Russia (IE: not calling them a "victim") over the sanctions because the sanctions were in response to attacking a nation and committing war crimes (though, if you read, many are feeling for russian citizens as many oppose the actions of "their" government). The reason most people see Ukraine as a victim is because they were doing what a nation should be doing (trying to build alliances to protect themselves against hostile forces). And when most people look at those two situations, they can easily understand how they aren't the same thing. Signing a piece of paper != bombing a hospital. Your argument is trying to take away that there is meaning and nuances to actions. We could say, "Ukraine did A, so Russia did B in response after threatening to not do A" is the same as "Russia did B, and NATO did C in response after threatening to not do B". And thus if "Russia is 'to blame' in C, then it reasons that Ukraine is 'to blame' in B". That is effectively your stance boiled down. And you can live in that world and no one can take you out of it. But the reality of the world isn't that simple and I certainly don't want to live in one where we decide that victims of atrocities and unspeakable acts "are to blame" because they tried to find peaceful ways to protect themselves. You are also completely avoiding the reality of how it could have been avoidable. Russia has no reason, NONE, to do what they are doing. You try to paint Ukraine responsible because they could have just given in to the threats (which makes no sense, given the reality of the situation), but for some reason completely ignore that Russia could have much more easily just not threatened. They could have been an ally to Ukraine. Putin and company decided they were the more powerful party and wanted to swing it around. So no, Ukraine's actions did not "directly lead to a terrible outcome". Russia's actions did. So no matter how you want to do your math, you are fundamentally wrong for victim-blaming in this situation.
Examples to try to help you find your own biases:
> But the reality of the world isn't that simple and I certainly don't want to live in one where we decide that victims of atrocities and unspeakable acts "are to blame" because they tried to find peaceful ways to protect themselves
The reality of the world is that a big power gets to dicate what smaller countries can do around them. I don't like that either, but that's how it is and you can find multiple examples of that in the world throughout history. The USA has applied this same kind of doctrine the Russians are trying to impose on their smaller neighbours for over a century[1]. You live in a world where this is how things work and if you pretend you don't , you can cause a lot of suffering to your own people.
> Russia has no reason, NONE, to do what they are doing.
So you get to tell Russians what they can do or not and what reasons are acceptable for them to motivate themselves? Well, then perhaps Russia can tell Ukraine that their reasons to join NATO are not acceptable either?
> They could have been an ally to Ukraine.
They were for a long time.... when they attempted to join NATO, a Russia-hostile alliance whose creation was almost entirely motivated by the desire of Western powers to keep Russia in check, they absolutely signaled to Russia that they see Russia as their enemy.
> So no, Ukraine's actions did not "directly lead to a terrible outcome". Russia's actions did
We can't agree on that, obviously... you believe that anyone should have the right to do what they want without consequences to themselves because there should be no aggression from others. What a nice world it would be if that was the case, but unfortunately, just like Cuba can't have nuclear weapons pointing to the USA, so can't Ukraine have NATO bases within striking distance of Moscow... because both the USA and Russia think that they must protect themselves against the enemy and that their right to do that supersedes the rights of Cubans and Ukrainians to join whatever military alliances they want to. Until that changes, things like this will continue to happen... if Brazil tried to develop nuclear weapons, for example, we know all too well what would happen - because that actually happened and we know how it went - they stopped under enormous pressure from the USA - if they had pushed forward and said to the world "we have the right to peacefully defend ourselves against the american enemy by developing weapons that are as strong as the enemy's", I have no doubt the situation could have escalated to the point where American bombs would've be exploding in Brazil - but luckily brazilians realized that and bowed to the pressure. The problem in Iran was very similar and it was very, very close to being bombed by the USA (and it's still very possible that they will eventually invade).
[1] https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/monroe-doctrine
This has nothing to do with what I said. So "ok"!? Thank you for explaining that strong countries swing it around because they can. I'm not sure if you are trying to convince me that people do that [we are talking about someone doing that right now] or it somehow justifies it as ok [yes, that is what we are debating]? I can point to multiple points in modern times and history where people were persecuted because of physical attributes. That doesn't suddenly make it ok. I'm not sure what fallacy you are trying to point out or argument you are trying to prop up.
> So you get to tell Russians what they can do or not and what reasons are acceptable for them to motivate themselves? Well, then perhaps Russia can tell Ukraine that their reasons to join NATO are not acceptable either?
Again, I made no claims as to what I'd say to Russia or Russians or where I said I'm against people/countries speaking their minds. But we can go down this path...because it doesn't end up where you probably thought. I literally stated that Russia is absolutely free to say to Ukraine they don't agree with them trying to join NATO. My quote to you: "Russia is free to voice their concerns". You just restated what I previously said. So...not sure your point here or "fallacy" you are pointing out. Does that mean you are agreeing I'm right, since your rebuttal was paraphrasing me and not a list of reasons I'm wrong? I'm happy with dialogues and people speaking their mind. I'm not ok with war crimes and attacking others.
> They were for a long time.... when they attempted to join NATO, a Russia-hostile alliance whose creation was almost entirely motivated by the desire of Western powers to keep Russia in check, they absolutely signaled to Russia that they see Russia as their enemy.
The inaccuracies of statements about NATO's mission aside (I'm happy to concede, since it doesn't really change anything), the Ukrainian people certainly don't think so and history doesn't really show that. But even if we pretended they were an ally up until just weeks ago...they aren't much of an ally if they invade...so...I'm not sure your point here. it certainly doesn't counter my argument that Russia could have been an ally and supported Ukraine better. Now, with that out of the way, we can delve a little into history...rewind a bunch of years... I'd say pushing your troops into someone's country and stealing part of their territory isn't what an ally does. But wait, isn't your whole argument about accepting consequences and thus it becomes your fault for what someone did to you? Could a consequence of stealing part of someone's country be that they might not see you as an ally and want to try to build an alliance with countries that could help defend them against you!?!? By your own logic, that would make Russia responsible, so through your own reasoning, Russia is to blame, right? I know you like to avoid mentioning this event when you talk about your timelines (perhaps because your arguments fall flat otherwise), but are happy to link to Ukraine saying it is a goal to get their territory back (so you clearly are aware of the actual history here). So even if you decide to change your argument that "knowing the consequences makes you at fault" to say Russia isn't to blame, the reality is Ukraine didn't wake up one day and say, "We should be part of NATO despite Russia being our BFF." History is not on your side here.
> We can't agree on that, obviously... you believe that anyone should have the right to do what they want without consequences to themselves [...USA...]
I don't recall making any statements about the US anywhere. I don't recall making any statements that the US is an example to hold up to. I don't know if you are trying to say one wrong justifies another..or perhaps something else? The statements again don't speak to anything I said. So the best I can surmise is you are trying to say that Russia isn't to blame because look, someone else has done things. If that is the case, you are literally affirming my argument from above...not showing a fallacy in it. But this whole part fails to even refute what I said. You instead threw out a basic strawman argument that I somehow believe there are no consequences in the world. If saying that a country peacefully negotiating to form an alliance after multiple threats and an invasion of their country from someone, who you claim is an "ally", doesn't justify that country invading them again...then yes, I don't believe it justifies it and I don't believe that makes the attacked country responsible for the other country attacking. I just refer back to my actual argument that you failed to address or refute if you want more reasons as to why.
At the end of the day, you failed to point out any fallacies in my arguments. Or really respond to any of them other than what seems like shifting your argument to: Russia is big and strong. Big and strong countries get to do what they want and that is ok because <history>.
It seems like I've distilled down your argument correctly, and if so, there isn't much to debate there, since that simply confirms my argument from above. So I guess, thank you for agreeing my arguments are correct, but it is unfortunate you have no inclination to change your mind. Which is a position one can take, but not one for fruitful conversation. I sincerely wish you the best and hope you are able to find a way to identify and empathize with victims, rather than blame them someday.
Putin was basically asking NATO to harm itself, there was no way anyone was going to take that seriously.
With all due respect, there was nothing to negotiate. Practically every world leader came to Putin's virtual doorsteps and tried to negotiate. Olaf Scholz even hinted at the fact that Ukraine wont be able to join NATO anyways bc of various reasons. But none of that helped. Putin has nuclear bombs. If we were to bend to his will bc he threatened to invade Ukraine, then we might as well pack our stuff, bc he has bigger threats. I can already see the messages on our post-nuclear-winter internet "Well, Proto-Putin threatened to start a nuclear war. The West had every chance to just allow him to crown himself Godking of Earth. This was the West's fault!".
I'm sorry but your worldview is cynical.
> so I am convinced the war could have been stopped,
Yes, by Putin. But he didnt. And that's somehow the fault of the West, I guess?
Vladimir Putin: I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.
The goal is both. You can't meaningfully punish a government without also punishing its people. The current sanctions are absolutely crippling to the Russian domestic economy. Their exporting businesses are dead in the water. What remains of their industry completely depends on imports, which have no stopped.
In their personal lives, they are accustomed to buying foreign goods, as basic as furniture. Russia currently doesn't manufacture enough furniture to meet its domestic needs... And doesn't manufacture enough manufacturing machinery to build said furniture factories, even if it wanted to.
So, you tell me, does mass unemployment, inability to buy basic consumer goods, and a collapse in purchasing power do - does it punish a government, its people, or both?
So far, they're not doing their job. Maybe we haven't incentivized them sufficiently.
12k people arrested in protests so far, and counting. >4k in a single day recently.
Do immoral things, let your leaders do them in your name, and well live with the consequences of a failed country/state.
E: My reply to the now deleted child comment by “from” which suggested that the sanctions are pointless because they probably won’t result in regime change.
But why do you think the sanctions are about causing regime change? That’d be nice, but nothing anybody is betting on.
It’s all about discouraging such actions in the future.
This narrative of “oh my would you think of the innocent Russian people” is tiring. They’re all guilty, just like all of Germany was guilty in 1945.
You've just described the USA for the past 100 years here. The level of double standard here is reaching levels I've never expected before.
It’s all about strategic interests. The US commits war crimes when it suits our agenda…just like the Russians. It’s kind of scary how much power the USG has over the world. We’ll destroy the economies of our adversaries with almost ZERO resistance. Using the term “whataboutism” doesn’t make OPs argument untrue.
Nobody in the US actually gives a shit about the Ukraine. It’s purely a strategic interest. We’re using the country as a pawn in our global political game. It’s fucked.
If we really cared about war crimes we wouldn’t constantly commit them. Why aren’t US citizens outraged by the horrific warfare that occurs on a daily basis in our world?
The funny thing is that Ukraine is actually pretty low as far as american interests are concerned... That's why the USA will absolutely not fight in Ukraine, as it has said repeatedly before and after the war started. Which makes the whole reason for this conflict to have developed into a full scale war - Ukraine's prospect of joining NATO, causing Russia to feel itself existentially threatened as it couldn't defend itself against NATO if that happened - extremely futile. America would gain nothing by Ukraine joining NATO (assuming no desire to actually launch an attack on Russia), but Russia had a lot to lose as they absolutely expected NATO aggression (if we wanted them to believe we didn't mean to attack them, perhaps we shouldn't have continued to expand to their borders in the first place despite their extremely strongly worded protests?!).
The entire phrase "expanding to their border" betrays a defective world view. Ukraine was considering joining a defensive pact to deter Russian aggression with obvious justification. The usage of "their border" somehow manages to imply ownership and violation. Nobody has a right to tell their neighbor they can't just a defensive pact or indeed any agreement whatsoever because of adjacency. Such deals don't take place by both parties standing on the dividing line and spitting onto Russian territory together. They take place within the respective countries capitals by their respective lawmakers.
The murderer doesn't have a right to stop his victims from conspiring to resist him.
I've never read a sentence that so clearly ignores the meaning of the words it is rejecting. When NATO includes another country, it's expanding. This is the meaning of the word "expand", to grow - adding a new country to your territory makes you grow - or expand!!
As Ukraine (as well as the Baltic states, which are already NATO) borders Russia, "expanding to the Russian borders" describes physically what it is that NATO is doing.
I use words with their current meaning without trying to spin their meaning to express something that's occurring... if you think that's a "deffective world view" then you're way too far into the play of words of politics to be able to have a serious discussion about the topic.
There wouldn't be any Baltic states if they weren't members allready
Tell that to people in Iraq... Or other countries NATO been fucking with for a while now.
During cold war for example NATO-aligned countries happily went around doing coups, sometimes backed with force (for example a US aircraft carrier threatening to bomb Rio de Janeiro in case of Brazil), replacing democratically elected presidents with dictators that would do whatever NATO wanted, how that is NOT unilateral aggression? Libya is a special case even, they were doing everything NATO wanted for most part, trying to make amends and create a good relationship, and got fucked anyway, NATO even gave air cover to people commiting black genocide there, what Tawergha people did to NATO to justify its "defense"?
Democratic systems get it wrong sometimes. No doubt.
I'm a UK citizen and disagreed with the war in Iraq waged in my name. But at least I was permitted to go out on the street and protest it. And eventually Blair was gone. And soon, so will Blowjo. But Putin has been around for long enough now, that he's starting to cause a bad smell in the world.
And it might seem unjust that Tony Blair and the rest never saw the Hague. I live in hope. But I see that what Russia is doing now is completely unacceptable regardless of how it sees the world evolving. It's democracy vs autocracy and democracy will win because if it doesn't, then what's the fucking point.
If you drink the kool aid and choose to believe that, sure.
You being a democracy makes no difference whatsoever.
Compare US victims of war to Russias over the last 2 decades. Tell me which seems more egregious.
This isn’t to say what russia is doing is good. But I just don’t understand how you can cast stones when your house is made of glass.
It was highlighting the differences in the systems of government that allows for course correction when the government starts making poor decisions.
The Russian government has set itself on a course, and then shut down the processes by which that course can be altered by (restricting information, disseminating false information, arresting protestors, opposition politicians)
People are worried because sentiments like yours enable hate. You've literally just carte-blanche declared all Russians guilty. Even the protestors? The newborn babies? Call me hyperbolic but you were the one who said "all". Do I even need to go on about why such absolutism can lead to tragedy?
They think that I and my people shouldn't exist, that my country shouldn't exist.
We already have a tragedy on our hands -- humanitarian crisis, my people being exterminated, etc. This is no time for equivocation, a vast majority (>70%) support Putin and be extension the war.
And protesting does not absolve your guilt. Ukraine has been at war since 2014.
War in Georgia was in 2008, so lets not mince words. They have supported this regime for decades.
Who is they? Do you believe that Putin's regime is a democratic expression of the will of the Russian people?
> my people being exterminated
What the Ukrainian people are going through is absolutely horrible. But it is by no means an extermination.
> They have supported this regime for decades.
Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union for 7 decades. During this time, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. I would still consider Ukrainians victims of the Soviet Union and not supporters.
This is tantamount to theft. Yes, I’m sure there’s plenty of weasel words in agreements. But at the end of the day, if you traded X for Y and end up with both X & Y, you have stolen from someone else.
Wanna know what Russia has been doing to the Ukraine?
If so, yes
Russia is firmly in Nazi territory right now.
Until I see gas chambers being used to kill Ukrainian civilians in mass, and innocent people being rounded up and burned inside buildings like the Nazi did, I would say we're still luckily very far from the same level of cruelty. And I pray to God we'll never see that kind of event again.
International organizations claim the number of dead civilians so far is around 400, which is in line with a full scale war where civilians are killed in the cross-fire, as horrific as that sounds.
For comparison, the USA invasion of Iraq caused around 5,000 civilian deaths in the initial few months [1], so it was actually likely much worse than Ukraine! Would you compare that with Hitler as well?
Germany took Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia on the grounds that it was populated mostly by Germans, who were being oppressed by Slav-dominated government. Russia took Crimea from Ukraine on the grounds that it is populated mostly by Russians, who are being oppressed by the Ukrainian-dominated government.
Germany subsidized a Slovak separatist movement in Czechoslovakia, culminating in the declaration of independent Slovakia, which promptly became a German puppet state. Russia tried to do something similar with Donbas separatist, although it wasn't particularly successful.
Then, at last, Germany invaded what was left of Czechoslovakia, with intent to fully annex and absorb it. We're now watching Russia do the same to Ukraine.
Ukrainians on social media are literally begging for more sanctions on Russia. They know Russia and they lived under a Russian-dominated USSR. These sanctions work and put pressure on Russia.
Putin has already walked back from his plans to put a puppet regime in Kyiv.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/05/war-conflict-enemies-o...
It's not like the Russian government went after pirates much, despite having the laws in place.
I understand people wanting to deter aggression, but this is not the way.
What happens when it’s your country on the other end of bad choices?
Not every country can shrug it off like America did when invading Iraq.
It seems like there's too much power in the hands of too few. It will bite us.
The balance of power has always been like that. If anything, the internet has diversified power more than it has ever been before in history.
IMO, this war has demonstrated where power really lies. And that is in the hands of the people. Do you think any politician West of Poland really wanted this economic war with Russia?
Clearly, the lives of the rich and powerful would have been much easier had Zelenskeyy snuck off allowing Putin to annex a big chunk of South Eastern Ukraine like he did with Crimea. Energy bills go back down. No additional influx of refugees. Pandemic free. Peachy.
So why is it happening? Because the free press is out there documenting the horrors for all to see. And it turns out that people do care. And they are fed up of the lies and the fake news. These sanctions are being made because people demand it. That is customers, individuals, employees. This is what is driving decision-making processes at the moment.
I think what's huge right now is soft power. Public relations and propaganda. Social media to form groups and opinions. I'm linking a Russian example here but I'm sure there's many others.
What is the way in this particular situation? What would you do?
There are 125 armed conflicts happening right now in the world. Hell we just started bombing Somalia again. Nobody is saying a word about that.
Sanctioning state organs and oligarchs is good and overdue, but the mob extending that to canceling all of Russian civil society seems stupid and evil to me.
Besides the majority of Russians support the war. The so-called "resisters" are a rounding error.
Listen to Ukrainians on social media. They're all calling for total sanctions against Russia.
People are dying, many of these people are friends, relatives, and co-workers of people living in Russia. Many Russian soldiers are dying needlessly because one - ONE man is having a end-of-life mental break. One man's pride is the cause of all of this. Just one man.
Period. One man. Blame Putin for Putin's war. If you don't like suffering for one man's tantrum -- call the Kremlin.
I'm sure they'd love to hear your complaints.
This reminds me how people in Soviet Union wrote letters to Stalin to describe injustices and how much they love him because he is the best possible leader they could have. Putin isn't Stalin yet, but the Russian people are waiting patiently for him to become one.
In fact, the sanctions should be even worse by your logic, since the people had much more power to prevent these wars, unlike the people of Russia.
Of course what Russia is doing is unacceptable, but it's hardly alone in the world in this type of behavior. Rather than getting on your high horse and condemning the people of Russia, it's better to send help to the people of Ukraine who are suffering in this brutal war, and maybe as well to the people of Yemen and Palestine and other invaded places.
Also, see if you can lobby your leaders to advance negotiations for treaties to dismantle all nukes - a major weapon that enabled Russia to bully its neighbors.
However, this does not mean that we should consider the invasion of Afghanistan as "defense" either. No state had been attacked by the state of Afghanistan. That a few afghan civilians conducted a terrorist attack in the USA doesn't mean that Afghanistan attacked the USA. Afghanistan even agreed to consider handing over Osama bin Laden to the USA, as long as they were provided with evidence of his guilt - like any state that is asked to extradite a resident. The USA decided that it didn't care to wait and produce such evidence, so they launched an invasion less than a month after the attack.
It is true that this war in particular got acquiessence from the UN security council, so I will admit that it was not technically illegal (unlike the Iraq war).
My only point was that claiming NATO is a "purely defensive alliance" is not supported by history. This means that some NATO claims about Russia's lack of reasons for fearing NATO expansion are bullshit.
But to be very clear again, this doesn't justify Russia's illegal murderous invasion of Ukraine.
This is wrong. The country of Afghanistan did not conduct the WTC attacks. The nominally ruling clique in Afghanistan would not extradite OBL. If anything Afghanistan was an area of civil war in which the US intervened.
After the Taliban refused to turn over the mastermind of the attacks, Osama Bin Laden, Operation Enduring Freedom officially began 7 October 2001 with American and British bombing strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-...
If we actually eliminated nukes NATO influence would only expand.
I was discussing the principle of it - would UN sanctions against NATO countries be justified, especially if they were to target the population of NATO countries?
Note that my country is in fact a NATO member.
> If we actually eliminated nukes NATO influence would only expand.
My point was exactly that eliminating nuclear weapons entirely would in fact be a boon to NATO, since for example in the current situation it could have actually considered some limited military aid without risking nuclear Armageddon.
So at least one pretty important NATO country is very clearly not prepared to get rid of its nukes, or pressure allies to get rid of theirs. Even more scarily, per president Trump, this same country is very interested in finding ways to get usable nukes.
There is significant risk of Russians blaming the West if NATO gets involved. Navalny's organization did a survey of Moscow's internet users, and nearly half think Russia is liberating Ukraine. It strongly suggests the vast majority of Russians do not see this as them having started an aggressive war.
https://mobile.twitter.com/PopovaProf/status/150105368420955...
The nation-state system tends toward distributed blame (to the nationals) even when there isn't distribution of power (autocracy). For once, most of the world is blaming the autocrat rather than the nation. That's an improvement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/opinion/putin-ukraine-chi...
Friedman is right that this is economic war. Which I think most people will agree is preferable to nuclear war. But the principle is the same. What democratic countries are attempting to do just now is demonstrate an economic force so great that the enemy sees they cannot win.
These companies are doing it because of the strength of feeling of their customers, employees, and owners. There were dockers in the UK who collectively refused to unload Russian oil off a tanker. Didn't matter that the govt hadn't banned it yet.
People are making lists but they're of the companies that continue to do business with Russia. And they don't seem to spend a lot of time on the list before caving into the demands.
But in the scope of this conflict, and as an European living in a country that borders Russia, I'm all for it. What is happening in Ukraine is horrific and it is happening because in the mind of the Russian leadership the country had aligned it self to close to the west. So they are in a sense attacked because they are to much like us.
There is also the question about what happens next if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, where is next on the path to rebuild the Russian empire? Georgia and Moldovia are candidates, in addition both the Baltics and Finland used to be part of the Russian empire, then there are all of the old Warsaw pact countries as well.
How can they and the rest of Europe ever be safe without a regime change or huge degradation of Russian military capabilities? One of the ways to accomplish this to thrash the Russian economy, while that is horrible to all the Russian that do not support the war, the alternative seems worse. Not that Redhat pulling out of Russia is going to have much of an impact on the Russian economy. But everyone's contributions helps a bit.
This is a protest against the Russian governement, because there is no alternative anymore at this point.
If you look at present day Germany redemption is certainly possible even if it takes 50 years or so.
He want's to describe the association to the generalization. Eg. Nazi vs Germans. And Russians vs. 'Putin's Russians?'. I don't know how to describe it better.
The description of the problem at hand could have been better, but I do agree it's an issue.
I know the difference between the groups. But it could be confusing for someone else who is eg. Russian and they could feel offended.
Most people here realize we are talking about "Putin's Russians" and not ordinary Russians.
But ordinary Russians are aiding Putin too and I know some try to protest under harsh conditions ( jail) or are fleeing Russia.
Eg. I don't consider Russian people living abroad the same as the one that are aiding Putin. And most definitely not the elite that are doing it with knowledge of the complete situation.
But one of the problems is that there's not really a word to describe that 'group' or any of those above mentioned groups.
PS. To share a POV, I asked a Russian friend how she is doing and if she had troubles in 'her social environment' here in Belgium. She said there wasn't an issue. I don't know if I can generalize that though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatnik_(slang)
> Vatnik or vatnyk (Russian: ватник) is a political slur,[1][2] used in Russia and other post-Soviet states based on an internet meme that was introduced in 2011 by Anton Chadskiy, which denotes a steadfast jingoistic follower of propaganda from the Russian government.[3]
[1] Actually I do, cut all russian gas and oil imports right now, no matter how painful, and apply sanctions to anyone who continues trading russian gas and oil, no matter if friend or foe, big or small. Soften the financial blow to the lower and middle class with some progressive tax, offer large incentives to build wind, solar, EV chargers, heat pumps, better thermal insulation of homes, etc. I'm oversimplifying, and sharper minds would be needed to improve the basic idea and close exploitable loopholes, but it would be doable if we really, really wanted. The killing of innocent Ukrainians must be stopped.
Were were you when the killing of innocent Russians was taking place in 2014? https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-the-forgotten-victims-of-donba...
What would you think if a region in Europe belonging to a larger country clamored for independence but was crushed by the military and by sanctioned militias which are antisemitic and right wing radicals? https://civic-nation.org/ukraine/society/radical_right-wing_...
How much do you really know about May 2nd 2014? https://www.dw.com/en/the-odessa-file-what-happened-on-may-2...
About the ties between radical anti-democratic para-military groups, the US and Ukraine? https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/06/04/how-and-why-the-u-s-go...
I don't know much, but would be surprised if it's as simple as: Russia = BAD, Ukraine = GOOD.
note that I'm not saying Russia is innocent or justified. Their war is unjustified and an atrocity. But Ukraine is not a beacon of democracy, respect and peace either. They are a country whose government has supported radical and violent tactics against some of its own ethnic groups.
Neither Russian nor Ukrainian civilians deserve any of this. In my opinion, protests, and sanctions should be very targeted (at leaders, companies and groups participating in these violent attacks: Now Russians ones, a few years ago Ukrainian ones).
These people were Ukranian citizens, Putin funded the separatists and tried to start a civil war. Since that didn't succeed plan B was to invade the country as we are seeing now
You are very critical of right extremists that represent 2% of the population.
Note : I hate extremists left and right. But 2-3% doesn't seem out of the ordinary.
It seems that you are overrepresenting a minor group ( extremists ), that should easily be crushed by the majority you are presenting.
As far as I'm aware, in 2014 people in some eastern regions were 54% in favor of Russia ( not a clear majority either) and because of the gray zone invasion in 2014 that declined to 14% later on.
Considering that 17,3% in entire Ukraine identify as ethic Russians and not Ukrainians, I'm actually suprised by the weak support later on.
Eg. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60362274
Here a follow-up how life worsened under Russia's annexation of Crimea and that people were changing perspectives after years, they have regrets - https://youtu.be/lzO7gIT5GYU
> Deutsche Welle or DW is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget.
Granted, "modern diplomacy" sounds a bit conspiracy leaning.
However, I think you missed my point. My point is not that Ukrainians are bad or Russians are justified. My point is that western media is making things oversimplified and polarized. Demonizing some people and cutting all support, treating others as heroes, arming them and forgetting their violations.
It's not about the % of extremists. It's that they committed several murders and went unpunished because the government / police turned a blind eye. It was convenient at the time because it silenced the pro-russian independent movements. Is that the hallmark of a western democracy?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/02/ukraine-dead-o...
>> Here a follow-up how life worsened under Russia's annexation of Crimea
Again, I'm not arguing being under the thumb of an autocratic regime like Russia is good for anyone. But shouldn't populations make that decision themselves? Or do we get to decide what's best for them?
About the propaganda, the articles you linked give another meaning to me than what you are suggesting and suggesting "modern diplomacy" is "somewhat" conspiracy like is a severe underestimation ( i browsed through some articles)
The latest one you linked was literally when Russia also moved Russians within Ukraine to cause an uprising. That's what it's called a "gray zone war" in 2014...
Putin even acknowledged he had boots on the ground at that time - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukra...
No one said that Ukraine was already a perfect democracy either. Their independency is very recent ( since 1991 ) and even then they were heavily influenced by Russian leaders in their governement ( literally). You can't fix something like that in 10 years.
If you're argument is that it's not perfect there, I agree. But a lot of progress has been made in recent decades, which is what counts.
But that is by no means a reason to revert the progress that has been accomplished by them in recent decades.
I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish here. The majority of Ukraine needs help against an autocratic regime and aggressor, that invests 6% of their GDP in military.
A leader like Zelensky currently could make great strides in a democracy in a short amount of time, if the invasion wouldn't have happened.
Nobody is suggesting he was/is perfect, but the current actions he's doing are formidable in many ways. He's clearly a man of many skills under very difficult circumstances. What you call "media heroes" isn't created by the media in the case. It's by Zelensky's "Fingerspitzengefühl", which he earned every bit of it on his own.
In the same logic, I'm not suggesting any system is perfect. My preference is the least bad one.
They're the aggressor in a war.
Or how do you feel about being canceled out yourself because you live next to the torturer and not preventing him from torturing your neighbours at your own expense?