I have the same impression. With the start of the war, the Russian side completely vanished from basically all forums I saw, except if parodied to a maximum for laughs. Part of that is surely that few people that saw Russias side beforehand don't support the war and don't want to defend it, but basically all I see now is complete and utterly black and white. And I support supporting the Ukraine, but I'm afraid this might be the final breakthrough for maximum polarization.

It's plausible that this represents a genuine change in public opinion. For historical precedent, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, public opinion in the United States drastically changed from a split to a 91% approval for the United States to declare war. [0]

The websites you have viewed, assuming they are in English, likely have a userbase that is primarily from the United States and countries that are part of the Western world. It's reasonable to believe that these countries (which have shared values) have genuinely shifted in public opinion in support of the invaded country.

If you're looking for the other side, you can find it in forums which have a userbase from countries that are not part of the Western world, and share different values. However, the views are more neutral for pragmatic purposes (due to prior relationships with Russia), rather than actively in support. [1]

Pragmatically, the war is not in the interest of most users across the globe. It represents an escalation that could plausibly lead to nuclear war if a NATO country were to intervene, which is in nobody's interest. It also affects daily life in other countries as gasoline prices are up across the world, and the sanctions will damage to economies outside of Russia. Emotionally and ethically, it's hard to see the footage of civilians dying and getting blown up by missiles as part of the attack.

I genuinely don't see a framing where it's a reasonable position to support the war without a massive logical leap or emotional stretch, and believe that other users in Western nations have arrived at the same conclusion.

[0] https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/world/asia/asia-russia-uk...

One doesn't have to support the war to simply have an opinion that there's plenty of blame going around, but there's a full court press online insisting this can't possibly be a legitimate stance.

> but there's a full court press online insisting this can't possibly be a legitimate stance.

That suggests some conspiracy. Instead of complaining about persecution - a common tacitc to change the subject from the weakness of one's argument - because people disagree with you, how about making your argument and listening to others?

> That suggests some conspiracy.

That's only one theory (a very attractive to the human mind one).

Another is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence#Living,_biological_s...

> Instead of complaining about persecution

I'm not.

> a common tacitc to change the subject from the weakness of one's argument - because people disagree with you, how about making your argument and listening to others?

Falsely framing people you disagree with as being conspiracy theorists or suffering from delusions of persecution is also an incredibly common tactic....although I suspect most of the time the person doing it doesn't even realize they're doing it.

Yes, everyone is lying except the Russians. Where have I heard that?