Exactly. Thank you! I'm not sure how GP can justify what Putin's regime is attempting out of historical paranoia about NATO, his own ill choices that created a

Exactly. Thank you! I'm not sure how GP can justify what Putin's regime is attempting out of historical paranoia about NATO, his own ill choices that created a traditional autocracy house-of-cards that is somehow also based on mafia behavior, and his PTSD from the Cold War. There is no what-aboutism allowed here. Nation states do foul things, and they should all be judged justly as possible by history. Here, in the _present_, in this thread, we are talking about a specific topic where a much, much larger military power attempting to steamroll a fledgling Democracy after previously stealing a giant chunk of it with brazen menace and comic subterfuge. This also gave birth to Wagner Group and all the harm they and their descendants are causing in Africa through mineral wealth extraction and coup support. We can have a separate thread where we can discuss the irony of this situation from a historical perspective, the cyclical nature of human aggression and ideological absolutism overall. That would be cool. What is NOT cool however, is somehow trying to justify such a war of aggression as a valiant pre-emptive stroke against an encroaching menace. That is farcical, and to be fair and frank, a detriment to any possible position one could have in support of Putin's regime. I personally can't see one, but I'm always open to listen and talk, instead of just throwing hundreds of thousands of lives away because you fell for a conspiracy theory - or even worse, because you created one.