1. Denazification
2. Demilitarization
The first point is about suppressing the Azov Brigade and its allies. The second point is directly connected to NATO. If a country does not have enough military power, then such a country cannot join NATO by definition. I'm not seeing naked imperialism, but the pursuit of goals publicly shared in (and post) 2007.
Ukraine is not celebrating Stalin the way Russia is celebrating Stalin. Ukraine was not forcibly closing organizations studying communists crimes or Stalin crimes, Russia did.
Ukraine did not moved to make gay or trans materials illegal. Meanwhile, arrests and violence against gays in Russia became quite a serious thing in Russia. Practically, being gay is criminalized.
Ukraine did not started wars with countries around it the way Russia repeatedly did.
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I am not saying Ukraine is country of saints, but Russia is waay worst then that.
When Hitler invaded Poland, at least he didn’t claim he was actually fighting fascists and stopping Polish militarization. Today’s propaganda operates on levels of post-truth that Goebbels couldn’t have imagined.
In a morally consistent world, both the Azovs and aggressive Russian regime should be countered, without any need for loss of innocent life. No one should use the existence of Azovs as an excuse to invade a country and murder innocent people.
Why does russia openly support Alexey Milchakov and it's openly nazi Rusich organization then? Maybe because it's a non point and invented reason? Putin loves nazis that support him.
To Russia, everyone who opposes them is a Nazi.
I agree. An additional reason AFAICS is that a slavic country, similar to Russia in many ways, making moves towards becoming a liberal democracy was seen as a threat to the domestic power of Putin and his inner circle. The Maidan revolution spreading to Moscow is surely a nightmare scenario for Putin.
I doubt that, unless Putin is completely delusional. The guy has, at best, almost no time left before he either dies, due to age, or dies, due to age/decline + the perception of weakness, and therefore assassination.
If Putin is still running Russia in 6 months I'll be surprised, and if in 2 years, astonished.
I guess maybe he was concerned a decade ago, but he's all short term thought now.
It's likely why the whole Ukraine thing seems a bit nutty, but if you know you have a very short time, and you think you're the only guy to do something, caution to the wind!
IMO, this is what makes Putin dangerous. He knows he is checking out.
I think it's important to bring nuance to these things and not just use a lazy label like "imperialism" to describe what's going on, even if imperialism maybe does play a part too.
Even dismissing the Nazi stuff - yes Russia has overblown it, but there were literal pro-Nazi military units of Ukraine fighting in that civil war that terrorized pro-Russian citizens.
Russia says a lot of things, often contradictory, but what really speaks is their actions. Invading Ukraine wasn’t about denazification, or nato threat, or anything except naked imperialism.