I never thought Russia would invade, I kept hearing the US warnings and thought it was BS. I was proved wrong, so I had to reassess my model of the world. I w

I never thought Russia would invade, I kept hearing the US warnings and thought it was BS. I was proved wrong, so I had to reassess my model of the world. I went to first principles... geography, history, demographics, psychology, and tried to understand it from the Russian perspective. I'm not Russian, I haven't talked to any Russian, it is pure speculation on my part. I think a lot has been made of comments about the far-right elements in Ukraine, but it is coming from my analysis that politics is becoming bifurcated and extreme on both ends of the political divide. You quite rightly point out that there are far right movements in more places than Ukraine, and I completely agree. I worry a lot about the rise of nationalism and I think any politician is a fool to ignore it... sadly many of them have exploited division and nationalism for their own ends. Indeed, Putin can be exploiting it as an excuse for the war, but we should acknowledge that there is a modicum of truth to it, which makes the propaganda effective. As for Putin's holding on to his power and authoritarianism, I think there is an element of that, but there are all the people under him that have vested interests in continuing the regime. In the West we think that democracy is the best system, and I think we don't question that. If you do question it, you'll see that it's actually quite fragile and relies on belief in the legitimacy of the elections, and a stable society where wealth inequality doesn't get out of hand. Increasingly the West is doubting elections Brexit/Trump/Biden, society is unstable with protests and riots, and wealth inequality is growing to historical extremes. Indeed, the Russian, Chinese revolutions and Hitler's rise to power came out of a similar situation. Lastly, I haven't mentioned speculation that Ukraine could be sitting on vast offshore oil and gas reserves in the Black Sea. If this is correct, Ukraine would be of prime interest to the EU and probably fast track EU and, or NATO membership. Obviously, this would threaten Russian interests. I hope that helps explain my thinking. I'm not an expert. I just tried to refactor my thinking and I just tried to start from first principles. I hope all the death and destruction stops.