What bloody “equivalent”? I’m talking about literal US invasion of Iraq which has killed more Iraqis than Russia has Ukrainians in the same amount of time.

They don’t call it an invasion in your land of the free? Or they really think that was normal and somehow different from 2022-now?

But we can do Iraq for your analogy too. When Saddam invaded Iran with pretty land-grabbing nationalist goals, they’d do a lot of fucked up shit of this kind, and they were supported by the West. Iranians have fought back, and that’s why despite hating the Islamic regime, they have no illusions about the West too.

I want to ask you another thing - do you realize that the mafia group in control of Russia got to the point of no opposition and ability to invade, for example, Ukraine, because from the very beginning it was supported by the West against democratic forces in Russia?

Yeltsin’s coup in 1993 was supported by the West. Oh, yes, his opponents were very scary, some “red-brown” mix of goosestepping neo-Nazis and Stalinists. But there’s one little problem - those obviously unpleasant people would refrain from violence and try to solve the crisis via peaceful means till the very storming of parliament (where they were, ahem, the majority).

Probably half of the Russian elites have emigrated to Western countries by now with their stolen money ; were that process not as welcome from the receiving countries, maybe it wouldn’t be their main goal, and maybe that would have lead to an environment where Russia’s elites can possibly change.