Firstly, they’re supposed to not be there at all.

As I mentioned, ethnic cleansing was already in process in Donbas and all peaceful diplomatic attempts of solving the issue failed, or in case of Minsk 2 were just lying to Russia while arming Ukraine. Did you think diplomacy was some sort of game after whichs failure everyone just goes home and nothing happens?

I didn’t adress the mass graves because it is Ukraine who has the history of “cleaning up saboteurs”(killing whoever wants to stay, or whoever aided russian forces delivering humanitarian aid in the occupied regions, Bucha is a good example), not Russia. Also all the links you posted are from western "N"GOs. I think you might see the issue of a very real bias. I agree that bombing of critical infrastructure is indeed a warcrime. For what it is worth, Russia only started doing so after Ukraine started assassination campaigns of civlians. It was a tit-for-tat escalation. During the first year Russia did not bomb critical infrastructure, which greatly suprised western military leadership, who’s “Shock and Awe” doctrine aims to destroy civilians infrastructure first. Ukraine eventually escalated from its usual shelling of civilians in Donbas to killing civilans in Russia and shelling nuclear plants, so Russia escalated in turn. I’m not defending it, just stating what happened.

and can end the war at any time by just leaving,

Russia intervened into a ongoing civil war after recognizing the sovereignity of the breakaway donbas republics and answering their calls for military assistence. It neither started that war, it started 2014 when the US did a regime change in Kiev and put people venerating the fascist Stepan Bandera in charge, one of the first things they did was abolishing all official languages but ukrainian, that pissed off roughly half the country enough to storm local government buildings and declare secession.

Nor would it end should Russia leave, because as the regime in Kiev stated multiple times: They want to ethnically cleanse Donbas. To become a second Isreal.

you are responsible for what happens in that war. Second, yes morally and legally militaries are supposed to not blow up civilians on reports that there are enemies around. Was Israel justified in bombing schools and hospitals in Gaza if Hamas had fighters inside them?

No, you are forbidden of using schools and hospitals as firing positions as defender too. That law applies for both sides in a war. Ukraine deliberately set up artillery next to schools, quarted its soldiers in schools and hospitals and regulary sets up firing positions in civilian areas. Hamas did not use hospitals as firing positions during the Gaza genocide, it does follow the laws of war to the letter. Please stay with the facts. Do not equate a moral army such as Hamas with the moraly bankrupt army that is the ukranian one.

Oh, great, we’re just accepting the stated goals of aggressors now? I guess I have to apologize for all the things I said about Israel and the US defending themselves from terrorists in Gaza and Iraq and definitely not doing genocide or trying to militarily secure access to oil. What a joke.

The difference is that Russia has a history of sticking precisely to its stated goals. Israel however literally never did. Ergo, the statements of the former carry some weight, the ones of the latter aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. It’s the old “cry wolf” thingy.

Is not a NATO member, and can’t be as long as the dispute with Turkey persists.

Fair point regarding Cyprus, I misremembered. Thank you for clearing that up.

Arrived in small numbers in March 2023, after a year of fighting and months of begging. A far cry from the article’s lies about high-tech weapons in Ukraine from the beginning. A few dozen decent tanks and howitzers do not constitute a modern army, particularly with NATO’s emphasis on air power and missiles, both of which arrived very late and with strict limitations.

As for the quantity of equipment by the west to Ukraine: The problem there is that the west flatout can not send much. It’s for-profit weapons industry do not produce the quantities needed for such conflicts. The “few decent tanks and howitzers” were already taken from active arsenals of western militaries. Western arms are for generating profit and shooting brown people who can not fight back, not for actual peer level wars.

Correct, initially the russian forces only numbered a bit over 140.000 men. Not even enough to take Kiev by force.

The initial goal was to end the ethnic cleansing in Donbas(by 22, one million people had fled to Russia), this of course means destroying Ukranian military capabilities involved in that. The stated cassus belli was resposibility to protect, referencing the NATO campaign against Serbia to seperate Kosovo from it. Back then (when the West was bombing Serbia) Russia stated that this would serve as bad precedent case.

Everything else had been tried. Ended with the west lying to Russians face (Minsk 2). Once peaceful diplomatic means are exhausted, what did you think would happen? War is diplomacy by other means. To freely quote Klausewitz.

First time contact with reality, I see.

The idea that Russia landed airborne troops in Kyiv without wanting to at the very least overthrow the Ukrainian government (just as the US likes to overthrow Latin American countries, which leftists rightly deride as imperialist, but many can’t seem to recognize when non-western countries do it) is laughable. It also ignores Putin’s clearly-stated belief that Ukraine has no legitimate existence as a separate country, a belief that he reiterated during his interview with Tucker Carlson instead of saying anything that Western supporters of Russia wanted him to say. It ALSO fails to mention reports from early in the invasion that Putin has personally rejected a peace deal because he wanted to go to war.

Which was not the stated goal, his position regarding the ukrainian state is pretty irrelevant to this matter.

The idea that the war was over NATO membership is outright nonsense, since that goal HAD ALREADY BEEN ACHIEVED by the annexation of Crimea and support for separatist factions, since NATO membership requires territorial integrity.

Not the first time NATO made exceptions, half of Cyprus is occupied by Turkey. Just because you do not know history, do not assume that others also do not.

The statement that the West gave Ukraine their most advanced weapons is a ridiculous lie to anyone watching Ukraine beg for years to get moderately updated tanks and jets, and mid-range ATACMs. In reality, the Biden administration had been withholding the best weapons specifically because they wanted the war to end like this and just didn’t want to admit it. The things people do are more important than what they say.

Ukraine got Leo2s in the most up to date configuration, PzH2000 and just to mention the modern german tuff they got. Yes also lots of old stuff, like Leo1s. But among the stuff they got, modern weapons were there.

The article conveniently fails to mention any Russian war crimes, such as the repeated bombing of civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals (only a bad thing when Israel does it, apparently), the Bucha massacre, or reports of mass graves in occupied areas.

This leaves out the fact that Ukrainian forces were and are known to use these locations for fire positions. Even more obvious if you saw pictures of those locations. The old soviet complexes were well planned and compact, schools were often surrounded by a ring of connected high rise habitation units. This meant that the schools were well protected from the weather, but also made the while complex veritable fortresses.

What are russian troops supposed to do? Not fire back? No matter ones position towards the SMO, this is a ridiculous notion.