So you think that oppressed people should just continue to lived with the oppressor instead of getting self determination and independence? That doesn't work out well, see countless examples many that are still there today like Xinjiang or Tibet.

Self-determination is a core principle of international law, people arguing against it are almost always repeating propaganda points.

> Self-determination is a core principle of international law, people arguing against it are almost always repeating propaganda points.

Arguably, the core principle of international law is, "everyone's got some slice of the planet, now let us all agree that past is past, and stick to the borders as they are now, so we can all focus on something more useful and mutually beneficial, instead of continuing to spend blood to adjust them". Attempts to change borders, or to create or remove countries, are quite a big deal.

Are you really naive enough to think the oppressed would gain from flexible borders more than the oppressors in the modern world?

Self-determination at the level of the existing countries is a core principle, not the individual: that's literally the reason we formed international law.

The Russo-Ukrainian war started as a large scale invasion of Ukraine, largely from Russias leased bases (inherited from the USSR and granted leases as part of thr settlement of the breakup of the USSR) in Crimea, leading to the seizure and illegal annexation of Crimea simultaneously with large scale fighting in the Donbas.

It didn't start as small scale fighting over borders in the Donbas.

The invasion was a follow-up of events going back to 2014 and earlier. It didn't happen out of the blue.

> The invasion was a follow-up of events going back to 2014 and earlier.

The large scale invasion from leased bases in Crimea occurred in 2014.

We're in 2023, where the war in Donbas has erupted into an all out ground war in Ukraine covering at least 3x as much area, by comparison the original fight was a small scale conflict...

This is that kind of nitpicking where you just make yourself seem lost in the conversation by taking an argumentative tone: Crimea and Donbas are both just examples of my point that pining for a world where borders are seen as flexible and flowing isn't really logical. Arguing that they were even larger just furthers my point.

We're in a fully globalized world. Things are past the stage where anyone besides large countries looking to bully will actually be able to move borders and keep them there. It doesn't really take propaganda to understand why that is: just looking at the current world is enough.