Who is we ?

Anyways, remember: “You go to war with the Army you have -- not the Army you might wish you have”

This war started with the Russian invasion and stops the moment they retreat from Ukrainian territory

No.

This war simmered, starting with 50 years of broken promises about the Eastern border of NATO.

The opening salvo where it went hot was the coup in Kiev that deposed an elected leader.

> and stops the moment they retreat from Ukrainian territory

Nope.

The Eastern Ukrainians, aka, The LPR and DPR, have been shelled by the Western Ukrainians for the last 6 years or so. They don't want to be controlled by Kiev anymore. Hence their full names.

Donetsk People's Republic. Lugansk People's Republic.

Am guessing they'd rather be with Russia, than the "countrymen" that have been shooting them, and bombing them.

https://southfront.org/ukrainian-army-continues-massive-shel...

I'm pretty sure most of them would prefer to be in Ukraine now. The Russians have been pressing men 18-64 into military service with shitty equipment, to serve as cannon fodder. The Russian's have done more to solidify Ukrainian national identity by invading their country than anything the Ukrainians could've done on their own.

The mythical promises (which, even if the stories about them were completely true, were neither made to Russia nor made in a form that any future government beyond the one they were made to had any reasonable basis to rely on nor made in a form that could be reasonably held against any future leadership beyond the actual individuals that made them) happened in 1989-1990. So, even ignoring that the only entity that could arguably rely on them was gone within two years and the only people they could be held against were out of power within three, it's not possible for there to have been 50 years of them. Also, Russia was actively seeking eastward expansion of NATO (specifically, to include Russia) starting before celebrations of its declaration of independence from and leading role in destroying the USSR had quieted down in 1991, and for nearly a decade afterward.

> The Eastern Ukrainians, aka, The LPR and DPR, have been shelled by the Western Ukrainians for the last 6 years or so

That's not accurate.

The Russia puppet pseudo-states, created through force of Russian sponsored Nazi mercenaries like Wagner and Nazi militias like Sparta (which individually is much larger than Azov that Russia likes to talk about so much, which was part of the response against their Russia-instigated aggression), have held, since 2014, a small fraction of their claimed territory in Eastern Ukraine and been shelling Eastern Ukrainians outside of the territory they hold and abusing those opposed to Russian aggression within it for the last six years. That's expanded, as well as the scale of abuse, with Russia’s open direct invasion recently.

Please provide some evidence that Wagner, the Russian military company similar to Blackwater, is a group of Nazis. As the documentary evidence for Right Sektor and the Azov Battalions being Nazi/Fascistic affiliated is already overwhelming, and far predates the recent invasion of Russian Forces, as documented by Vice News, and several other western media sources.

Would like to see some evidence of the same about Sparta too, if such a thing exists.

i completely agree. According to Geneva convention a person not covered by POW status should go through the criminal system of the place. My point is that Russians forces in Ukraine aren't protected as POW, and thus they are subject to criminal prosecution. And if it were up to me they would be put on criminal trial for those war crimes and crimes against humanity.

>any cornered beast is more dangerous than one that knows it has still a chance of redemption.

Not than it comes to a Nazism beast. It can't become more dangerous than it already is, and there is no chance of redemption. That is why we had 1945 in Berlin. And i don't see any way other than similar scenario of cornering and squashing the Russian Nazism all the way in Moscow.

They carry arms openly, and have a uniform as part of a country's armed forces. They have military ID cards which identify them, they work for superior officers, and they conduct operations.

You might want to revisit the actual text of the different versions of the Geneva Conventions, because your inaccurate text begs correction.

Here is a copy-paste from The International Red Cross

> (1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

> (2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

> (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

> (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

> (c) that of carrying arms openly;

> (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

> (3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a Government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

> (4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civil members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany.

> (5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions in international law.

> (6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

As someone with some familiarization with the Law of War, I'd say both Ukrainian combatants in the AFU, and the Russian Forces and their allies in the Russian Army, and DPR, and LPR, are all armed forces that are party to a conflict and deserving of protection.

You always want to err on the side of granting protections, for legal protection, and also, to prevent you yourself from committing war crimes, becoming a war criminal...

As genocide and ethnic cleansing are the officially declared major goals of the war, anybody participating in any way on Russian side is immediately guilty, just by mere fact of participation in the war, of those crimes. As a result any Russian soldier is subject to criminal prosecution the moment they captured.

Some situations seem to be even more straightforward:

>[2] https://rumble.com/v104l5t-ukrainians-kill-captured-russian-...

In the video the Ukrainians say "marauders" about those Russians, and the Russian armored carrier in the video has various civilian property loaded on it (and the marauding by Russians is very widespread). Officially marauding in Ukraine right now is a war crime punishable by prison, while on practice in various regions the regional administration has declared it as punishable by shooting on the spot.