I don’t believe both sides are equally bad.

I think I made the point, but let me state it more clearly:

The United States of America is the most evil country on earth, probably in history, and its global empire has resulted in the suffering and death of millions if not billions of people at this point. NATO is an instrument of US empire and the European Union/Western European nations are loyal dogs to the US empire, happily participating in the oppression and violence while attempting to maintain clean reputations.

In comparison, Russia and even the old USSR cannot begin to stack up if you seriously analyze the crimes and bad actions.

All of that can be true, it can be true that Ukraine was brutalizing and unfairly treating ethnic Russians, and I can still remain adamant that war is not going to better the situation.

But here, let me do a bit of reframing and maybe you can accept this better.

I respect your outlook but if I am a liberal then socialists do not exist in the west. And maybe that is true. I only get mad when fellow Yankoids call me a liberal. If people elsewhere wish to view me as such, well, maybe I am to them.

With the above in mind, from my western perspective, I see clearly who benefits from this ongoing war in my own country/allied countries. The capitalist class, specifically those invested in the US military industrial complex. From purely that standpoint, I mostly see the war as an exchange of life for money. So, regardless of Putin’s motivations, regardless of basically anything else, I wish for my country, the US, to immediately stop funding the war and immediately stop meddling in the region (and the entire world, but focusing on Ukraine here). This has been my stance all along for over two years now (and of course before that I wanted the US to stop fucking around over there because clearly this type of scenario was inevitable).

And of course I support elimination of Nazi elements within Ukraine. I think the biggest positive step towards that goal would be the US fucking off since the US (CIA) loves to prop up Nazis and other reactionaries anywhere they meddle around the world.

Perhaps a positive way of viewing things is I want to pull US influence out of the region and you want to push it out. In that way, we work towards the same goal in different ways.

You’ve probably made the most clear and concise argument against my stance (which I don’t claim is unique, just for the record).

I agree that Russia isn’t an imperialist nation. I was careful to not characterize them as such, and you’re correct to bring up the fact that the US is. This is actually why I place most of the blame on the US for the current state of things, of course the EU countries are not innocent, although they basically just march to the tune the US sets.

I’m open to being wrong about all of this, but I think the ultimate judgement won’t come for a long time. Maybe not in my lifetime even. I know one thing I’m absolutely not wrong about though, which everyone here agrees on I hope, the US/NATO need to totally get the fuck out of Russia and its neighboring countries. If this war does result in the US long term abandoning Ukraine and efforts there to stoke Nazism and general right wing nationalism/anti-Russian/Soviet sentiments, then I suppose I’ll have to accept that the end result is good even if I disagree with motivations and methods.

I fully understand Russia’s viewpoint. NATO (just gonna use this generically as a filler for US/EU/NATO) is, in my view, fully the instigator and the cause of this war. Or most of the cause. Just as it would be silly, imo, to place blame on Kim and the socialists in the DPRK for “starting” the war in Korea, it would also be silly to place all the blame on Putin. People/countries all have breaking points. It’s just simple reality.

But resting heavily on my DPRK analogy, I would say that is a clearcut example of a time to uncritically support the North in the Korea war against the imperialist US and its puppets in South Korea. My reason why is pretty simple: the people of all of the Korean Peninsula wished to have a united socialist government and the US enlisted fascists in the south to end that dream of the people there. If Kim had succeeded in defeating the Americans and the southern government it would’ve been a huge advancement for socialism across the globe. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go that way.

I laid out the above to show that I’m not ideologically opposed to war and conflict as long as it aligns with a greater socialist or leftist of some sort movement supported by the people.

Putin does not represent such a movement. He doesn’t seek to reinstate the USSR. He’s a capitalist who has enriched himself personally off the backs of his countrymen the same as many other leaders do worldwide. So although I understand from one point of view that NATO puts pressure on Russia and seeks to rob it further of its wealth and resources, which Putin and presumably all Russians are opposed to, I don’t see the war in Ukraine as advancing any sort of socialist movement. If Putin were a committed communist seeking to be like a second Stalin or something, I would absolutely support any and all actions to take the territory of Ukraine assuming the end goal would be annexation and then bringing it into a greater union. But as it stands, what do the people of Ukraine gain from this war? Will Putin bring any liberation to them? Will he improve their lives in any meaningful way?

None of this means I support Ukraine btw. In my personal opinion, after learning the history there in the past 100 years, Ukraine should never have been created and it is currently serving the purpose its designers always hoped it would. Being a reactionary thorn in Russia’s side. My problem is… as I’ve said, Putin sucks basically. He’s a reactionary himself. A different flavor, I suppose, but a reactionary is a reactionary in the end and a capitalist country is a capitalist country. I want the bloodshed to end there. I don’t want to hear or read about disabled men, young boys, or old men being forcefully sent as fodder to die in a struggle between these capitalist nations. I do understand the counterpoints that NATO will always seek to reopen this war even if a peace agreement is reached. The situation is bleak, and I can only rely on my own principles that I hold (hopefully explained clearly here) to guide me to what I see as the correct resolution at the moment.

Anti-Russia in what way? Against the people? No. Against Russian culture? No. Against policies of the Russian government? Yes.

The Russian Federation is a capitalist country, proudly admitted by President Putin. So its endeavors should be highly scrutinized the way we would with any capitalist nation like the US, etc. You should take into account history of the region, especially since the fall of the USSR, and the actions of outside meddlers like the US/NATO/EU. Ultimately though, we should be (as people “on the left”) against any wars that don’t advance the goals of the proletariat. So, for this reason, the principled stance is to call for an immediate end to hostilities in Ukraine/Russia and sign a peace agreement. It’s also important that people “on the left” oppose NATO expansion and any US meddling in Ukraine that led to this current war.