[foverzar]

> Is the assumption that once Russia mobilises its population, they'll all go "sir, yes, sir" and go storm Ukraine?

Russia has like 150 mil in population and they currently plan to mobilize 300k. That's a fraction of percent - I'd expect that there would be more than enough who will.

> Also, the responsibility for this war is absolutely on Russia, for deciding that Ukraine is a part of Russia through either a puppet government or through direct invasion.

Oh please, each member of the conflict, from Russia and Ukraine to Germany, France and the US - all have made multiple conscious consecutive steps to escalate it into a war. Remember how there was Minsk-1, then Minsk-2, and how all this had dragged on? Remember how Nord Stream pipeline sanctions were a thing years before the war? Remember how just before the war Russia demanded security guarantees from NATO? Good times, lots of opportunities.

You may disagree with it ideologically or engage in needless value signaling, but this won't change the reality of multiple cause-effects that brought us where we are.

I blame the political elites, IMO this is just criminal incompetence of politicians, completely detached self-righteousness and a lack of any political will to find compromises. And of course your typical corruption: American Congressional-Industrial-Complex once again demonstrates us how Eisenhower was right in his assertions and that last warning speech.

[Hamuko]

>Remember how there was Minsk-1, then Minsk-2, and how all this had dragged on? Remember how Nord Stream pipeline sanctions were a thing years before the war? Remember how just before the war Russia demanded security guarantees from NATO? Good times, lots of opportunities.

All of those things happened after the Russo-Ukrainian War had actually started.

[foverzar]

This all had been well before February 2022, when the war had started.

One could argue that the half-civil war between Kyiv and Donetsk/Luhansk is also a part of this war (that would imply though that you see the civil war in Syria as a Syrian-American conflict, but why not)

It doesn't change the fact that there were quite a lot of opportunities to deescalate, that Russia was willing to participate in.

Reiterating, all direct and indirect participants consciously took all the necessary steps to turn all this into such a bloody mess.

It could all be nicely and democratically resolved by simply giving Donetsk and Luhansk basic autonomy, while still remaining part of Ukraine. But that was kinda politically challenging, so escalation it is.

[trasz]

DNR/LNR were set up by Russia, so that one was a proxy war between Russia and Ukraine. It turned into a direct conflict when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.

[m000]

> It could all be nicely and democratically resolved by simply giving Donetsk and Luhansk basic autonomy, while still remaining part of Ukraine. But that was kinda politically challenging, so escalation it is.

This. West firmly understood that Ukraine is a deeply divided country [1]. Yet, West peddled the (clearly infeasible) idea of a unitary state. This could never end well for all of Ukrainians.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/01/24...