Another unpopular opinion here:

Tomorrow would be another day of life. Probably the elites would feel the difference, but, for the common people, tomorrow would be exactly the same.

> Or is there an alternative to fighting that you’re proposing?

Diplomacy.

> tomorrow would be exactly the same.

Right now Ukraine is a democracy with free press etc.

Under Russian occupation you'd have dictatorship, death squads, the whole country looted.

Exactly the same, sure.

Post-soviet Russians are demanding a different political system. I believe Putin will the be the last of his kind there.

They can demand all they want? How will they achieve it? Putin suppresses any opposition political parties who might win over him or whoever will be his chosen successor.

> Diplomacy

That is more defensible than just standing by while Ukraine asks for military aid, IMO.

I’m not sure if you have specific diplomatic strategies in mind. I sort of assume that the west is going straight to ratcheting up sanctions because there’s not much else to go on. But then I’m no expert in international relations

I shared my life with one for several years but I'm no expert in international relations either.. What would I do? I would assign this diplomatic task to.. Trump. He did it before (North Korea), he could make it again. The problem is that his success would frighten some much more than the war does.

>Or is there an alternative to fighting that you’re proposing?

The alternative was not to have a CIA-financed coup in 2014 that put a regime in power hostile to Russia. This is why they took Crimea, and this is why they're invading now. Even if Putin is in the wrong, it's the height of hypocrisy for us to look all shocked that Russia has responded how they have. We knew they would respond this way.

That is not the only alternative. Putin’s terms for peace are nowhere near as extreme as “overlording” over Ukraine

> That is not the only alternative.

Fair, I am asking what the alternatives are to total capitulation. “Overlord” is maybe a bit flip, but the Russians aren’t exactly coming to share their birthday cake or something