[joejohnson]

He substantiates his claim that the expansion of NATO is a perceived threat to Russia. Your mischaracterization of this as a “false dichotomy” with the other point (that Putin is a murderous dictator, which he agrees is true) doesn’t have anything to do with your unsubstantiated claim that he’s being disingenuous.

[tptacek]

It has about the same moral valence as saying "Maybe Russia invaded Ukraine because Putin is a twisted amoral dictator, and maybe they did it because of how Ukrainians voted in the 2021 Eurovision contest". But it's sneaky, because you can see immediately how ridiculous the Eurovision thing is, but the NATO thing is framed as if it might in fact have been casus belli. Obviously: it was not.

[joejohnson]

You keep insisting there’s absolutely no connection between the US signing a defense deal with Ukraine and Russia invading. Then what’s your theory as to why Putin invaded?