That the Russians invaded Ukraine and not the other way 'round is pretty much black and white though.

yes. That's the nature of war. Just like general disinformation and the campaign to support the poor Ukrainians roasting devious Russian in their tanks (while taking 0 losses of course!) and painting the heroic image of a people waging urban warfare defending (read: destroying beyond recognition) their country to the last drop of blood.

Some further reading:

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1498490752065757184

https://yasha.substack.com/p/insurgency

Putin is evil (and a child of the end of history). And yet, fighting fire with fire in heated, nationalistic conflicts has never been a recipe for improvement.

Honestly, everyone in Ukraine has a right to be anywhere in Ukraine. If they do logistics in a hospital it doesn’t give Russia the right to bomb it - because Russia’s invasion isn’t in any way justifiable or legal.

So, putting up barricades behind a schoolbus is ok as well?

Yes, absolutely. If the invaders don’t want to shoot a schoolbus, all they have to do is go back home.

>My colleague with family in the region

Just say he is Russian instead.

>Which might explain why they would be targeted.

Why is it hard to believe that Russians would intentionally target Ukrainian hospitals? Have you seen what the Russian media and social media say about Ukrainians?

Russia literally bombed and killed 47 civilians waiting for food last week.

>but I know it’s not black and white

Russia started an irredentist invasion of an independent democratic country.

How is that not black and white?

The truth is Putin's troops invaded Ukraine and are killing innocent people every hour. And it's obvious that each day of this aggression will make this number higher and higher.

Same thing happened in Gaza - Israel blamed Hamas of course:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-israeli-strike-damaged-g...

Western news has been notoriously racist when it comes to middle-east crisis vs Ukraine coverage.

Not sure if it's limited to certain news outlets, but that's the overall feeling I'm getting.

Maybe to some degree. A lot of it is that in most conflicts both sides have some credible arguments, I disagree with the degree of responses and general treatment of WB and Gaza, but Israel usually claims with some degree of truth to be responding to attacks during their incursions and bombings, while noone believes Russia had a valid reason to invade Ukraine.

Half of Russia feels the same way about their country that you do about Israel.

I'm talking about outside of Russia/Israel. And I personally do not see Israel positively wrt Palestine, but find their pretexts a lot more credible than Putin's so I understand why there's a lot more unanimity in Western press about Ukraine