While I agree with the sentiment that at the end of the day none of this would've happened without the Russian aggression, it does still matter because intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime. I'm not saying that's what happened here but let's be clear that actions have serious meaning in war. This line of reasoning reminds me of the idea that we shouldn't care about the origin of covid because it's out there and the origin isn't going to make much difference at this point. But I think a lot of people do care about these details because they might have great historical significance.

But the accusation is not that Russia did this intentionally. It is most likely an accident, an accident caused by Russia's invasion. Russia is responsible for the death of these civilians even if the missile came from Ukrainian equipment.

USA and its Nato allies have committed huge number of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan without any repercussions. And USA does not allow its soldiers to be put on trial in international war courts so what moral authority do these courts have. Mostly they are used against poor african countries.

Declare war with US and NATO then.

It is sure nice to be a guy with the biggest dick. Might makes right. That's the reality of life.

Who is going to enforce the war crime penalties?

The ICC [1]. Like everything it's not perfect. But this might be in their jurisdiction. I don't know.

[1] https://www.voanews.com/a/icc-may-investigate-possible-war-c...

It is, because Ukraine, while not a state party to the Rome Statute, has acceded voluntarily to ICC jurisdiction for war crimes on its territory.

OTOH, ICC has no practical power to bring Russian personnel (other than those captured in combat by Ukraine) before it for trial, and the US “invade the Hague” law on the ICC might prove a model for Russia should the ICC gain custody of Russian personnel somehow.

The truth matters.

Really like this comment. Root cause = aggressor actions.

>"This is going to be a disaster for the Russian people as well."

It is already disaster. Putin has basically threw Russia back to a stone age. I've no idea how long it'll take for him to go one or the other way and for Russia to recover back to anything resembling normal life.

The man seems to love Stalin; it'd be better if he loved Khrushchev.

Khrushchev was no match to Stalin. But he did not hesitate to fire on striking workers killing scores and later sentencing some to death and many to extended imprisonment. So I think as a human he was the same POS. Luckily for the people of USSR on a smaller scale.

It's going to be a disaster for Putin, too. A disaster for literally everyone involved.

Let's hope so. He will reap what he sows.

The Russians say: It would not have happened when Ukraine was not turned into a potential NATO country. The Russians genuinely see it as a security issue. Ukraine is becoming a threat once part of the NATO. In some ways understandable. In the end we are talking about two enemies ,the west and Russia having a pretty serious conflict. Neither is good or bad. Unfortunately propoganda is extremely efficient these days. Either side have full support.

The reasons why there isn’t actually another perspective like this:

Everything you said was true years ago as well, a form of it was even true during the Cuban missile crisis, as the US had missiles at the border of the soviet union too, there is nothing unique or newfound geopolitically about the timing here to support this “security issue”.

Russia creates contexts for invasion. It hands passports out to pro-Russian residents in parts of Ukraine, and then invades to “protects its citizens” so that it could theoretically be judged the same way as other countries that do interventions.

Adding all of that to an ideological retcon from 100 years ago, and all you have left is an irrational madman who wants to be in the footnote of a history book as attempting empire rebuilding.

Putin’s own advisors are afraid of him and cant give him a straight answer about anything, they're afraid of the international consequences of this as well.

None of this supports the idea of a leader doing anything in the interest of Russians or the concept of a Russian empire.

We’ll never even get to know what an independent Donetsk and Luhansk even means. Microstates? Districts of Russia?

This is just all way off and a mess. Its come down to just choosing a side and watching the results unfold.

> The Russians say [...] NATO

Putin in his speech blamed Lenin for giving away the territory of the Russian empire in creating a Ukrainian Republic, and claimed that Ukraine is not a real country so does not deserve sovereignty. He later said its leaders are drug dealing Nazis, presumably including the Jewish Russian-speaking president.

Nothing the Russian state says about the origins of the conflict seems very credible. A more plausible origin is Putin’s megalomaniacal imperial ambitions and paranoid fear of being eventually displaced by a homegrown pro-Europe, pro-democracy movement in Russia.

> Nothing the Russians say about the origins of the conflict seem very credible. A more plausible origin is Putin’s megalomania and paranoid fear of being eventually displaced by a homegrown pro-Europe, pro-democracy movement in Russia.

Ideology seems to be part of it but Russian security concerns are part of it too. Suggesting that NATO expansion was a mistake is not the same thing as blaming this war on NATO.

Anyone who does blame NATO should ask themselves why Ukraine wanted to join in the first place (because the Ukrainians know the Russians won't respect their sovereignty).

Russia feels the same way about Poland, the Baltics and any other country that joined NATO after 1993 or so.

But none of that matters, it's just a figleaf to justify an attack, if not for 'NATO' then for some other bullshit reason.

This comment is getting down voted pretty hard. Im not pro-Russia by any means, but I did take a minute to imagine what it would be like to live with (more?) missile silos pointing at me at the boarder of my country. I didn't have to think too long, you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

This pushes the justification for Putin's response away from "unprovoked and savage".

IMO I think the US is partially responsible for this crisis. We've never stopped expanding our influence, for better or worse. Perhaps we pushed a little too hard here.

</armchair>

(edit: changed pro-russia to pro-Putin. E2: Flipped again)

Your change from Russia to Putin is key here...

Is it? I didn't want to blame the whole of Russia when Putin has more authoritative powers over the countries decisions, quite unlike the US. I'll fix it regardless since this is a nuanced difference.

I actually liked your change from Russia to Putin so apologies for me not explaining and causing confusion and another edit. My point was that you were more accurate to say that Putin is feeling threatened, than Russia is. And this change has further implications on the validity of his stated reasons.

Nah, it is pretty clear that Russia goal is control of Ukraine. The only role membership in NATO play is that if that theoretically happened, it would be harder to attack Ukraine later on.

And there was no immenent threat of Ukraine entering nato anyway. This is just Russia using it as excuse.

Of course they want to control Ukraine. They did for 100 years. Only recently they start losing market to western companies. That is the reason why there is a war now. Russia is losing ground. NATO is gaining ground. It is that simple. The ignorance to think that the west doesn't want Ukraine being member of NATO is beyond strange. Of course they want. It brings enormous market to NATO land. all large businesses would vote yes to get Ukraine inside their sphere. Same for Russia. For them it is exactly the same.

It's up to Ukrainians to decide if they want to join NATO. Not businesses in another country.

If only the political level of corruption would be normal. Yes then I completely agree. But it's not. Nevertheless I agree that the people of Ukraine want no Russian control.

Yeah, they suppressed their attempt to have state in 1917 and when communist regime and it's USSR ended, Ukraine finally had its independence.

Nothing obvious about Russia needing to annex surrounding countries again.