, I kind of read 's comment differently:

Observation: Putinistas tend to be radicals ✓
Not: Radicals are Putinistas

(Rashists?)

Maybe I read it wrong.

Rafael's SPYDER defense system evolves to shoot down ballistic missile threats
^{— Yonah Jeremy Bob · Jerusalem Post · Jan 4, 2023}

Send some to the Ukrainians.

Your point is well taken that the influence factor from the U.S. and Russia is not equivalent in terms of coercion and punitive consequences. I read Smoleńsk and Dutkiewicz to be saying that the U.S. helped prevent a repetition of the Lukashenko effect rather than manufacture a coup. The authors are looking at it as a local struggle with different lines of support. In their efforts to acknowledge a center of gravity in Eastern Europe, they look back at a history of sometimes being helped and not helped by nations in the 'West'.

From that perspective, seeing wars as proxies fighting in the service of others is a self-fulfilling prophesy. And that leads to your observation:

It is pretty insane to think that Ukrainians defending their country against Russian invasion are merely doing someone else's bidding. — SophistiCat

Agreed. I am interested in how the zero-game perspective is accepted by default. The authors of the article are challenging the notion that nations following their interest in other places render these conflicts to be only about them.

I never referred to the Ukrainians as "soulless" - that's a misrepresentation of my argument and a tasteless one at that, aimed specifically at framing me as anti-Ukrainian. — Tzeentch

I did not mean to represent your argument as a matter of intent.

You have yet (to my knowledge) to represent the Ukrainians as choosing to fight for their own reasons rather than at the behest of others outside the country. My charge is purely a deduction from that observation.

Since he's more expert than you, you're not really in a position to judge whether the inclusion of these developments is meritorious or mistaken. You can only decide who to believe and you don't have sufficient expertise to do so on technical grounds. — Isaac

Arguments based upon authority are the weakest kind.

Observation: Putinistas tend to be radicals ✓ — jorndoe

On what evidence? What actions determine one is a 'Putinista'? Not official alliances. Not declarations of support. Not direct acts of support (arms sales, financial aid).

What identifies the 'Putinista' in this laughable theory is simply that they don't support current US policy. Anyone not voicing full-throated support for a military solution is a 'Putinista', So by definition, 'Putinistas' are radicals. It's not a discovery, it's a definition.

It's nothing but a transparent effort to smear the left (typically seen as well-meaning, if too ideological) by associating the with the far-right (more typically seen as 'evil', or at least very selfish). It's such an obvious ploy that I didn't think anyone would actually give it any serious consideration, but I suppose I didn't account for everyone...

On what evidence? What actions determine one is a 'Putinista'? — Isaac

They have been shown and discussed even on this thread. A true Putinista is obviously someone or a movement/group who supports and works for Putin's objectives and agenda.

Like the Ruskii Obraz. Which Russian government supports as part of "managed nationalism" and has used the neonazis for example against Navalnyi:

In 2008-09, the Kremlin was threatened by Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny’s efforts to build an anti-Putin coalition of democrats and radical nationalists in Russia. In response, the Kremlin began to work with Russkii Obraz (“Russian Image”, or “RO” for short), a hardcore neo-Nazi group best known for its slick journal and its band, Hook from the Right.

With the assistance of Kremlin supervisors, RO attacked nationalists who were abandoning the skinhead subculture for Navalny’s anti-Putin coalition. In return, RO was granted privileged access to public space and the media.

Or the Black Hundreds, a reborn movement out of the ultra-conservative historical movement from the Russian Empire (which supported the Czar's autocratic rule and was fervently against any liberalization or modernization of the Russian Imperial system). And promotes the Russian nationalism that Putin favours and even sent volunteers to fight in the Donbas in the early stages of the conflict.

Or how about the Night Wolves?



But of course, these groups and their ideology, agenda and their ties to the Kremlin can be ignored, because according to someone here...

What identifies the 'Putinista' in this laughable theory is simply that they don't support current US policy. — Isaac

Which is hilarious.

It's nothing but a transparent effort to smear the left (typically seen as well-meaning, if too ideological) by associating the with the far-right (more typically seen as 'evil', or at least very selfish). — Isaac

Still conflating what I wrote at least. Radicals is still the word here. And still not all. (Can't speak for others of course.)

They have been shown and discussed even on this thread. A true Putinista is obviously someone or a movement/group who supports and works for Putin's objectives and agenda.

Like... — ssu

The comment was...

in Europe and America both the far-right and the far-left are Putin's closest allies. — SophistiCat

"Europe and America". Not "Russia".

Try reading first and commenting second. It works best that way.

Arguments based upon authority are the weakest kind. — Paine

Go on. So If I argued that Ukraine was overrun by Nazis and you retorted that experts within Ukraine have shown that to be false, I would have the stronger argument?

"Europe and America". Not "Russia". — Isaac

Still doesn't make a difference: A true Putinista is obviously someone or a movement/group who supports and works for Putin's objectives and agenda.

Not as you say, everybody that is critical of current US policy.

And fun fact, the Europeans that are Putinistas, are obedient workers for Putin. Here's a Finnish Putinista (holding the Finnish flag) alongside others. He actually moved to the "liberated" Donbas some time ago.

A true Putinista is obviously someone or a movement/group who supports and works for Putin's objectives and agenda. — ssu

So where are these people in sufficiently represented in America and Europe to make the quoted claim?

So where are these people in sufficiently represented in America and Europe to make the quoted claim? — Isaac

Referring here to ?

Actually he is totally correct that many share parts of the ideology that you can call them allies as @SophistiCat said. In short, leftist and right-wing populism enjoy a common ground if actual policy implications are left out. Populist conspiracy theories are their main course. Right wing and left-wing populism share a lot. The other one just puts a lot more "bankers" being "Jewish bankers".

We had a little discussion about this, Putins new supporters, on this forum ...six years ago. See here.

leftist and right-wing populism enjoy a common ground if actual policy implications are left out. — ssu

The claim was...

Putin's closest allies. — SophistiCat

Not "share some common ground with each other".

So the evidence, other than merely a failure to support mainstream policy, of "allies" of Putin from the American and European left sufficient to constitute the claimed trend...?

Look at the discussion earlier discussion to get the hang of it. And who has gotten money from Putin.



And notice that many times it is as @SophistiCat said, very strange bed fellows on just what and who Russia has supported. For example, Russia could support UKIP and also The Scottish National Party, even if these are quite apart from each other. Of course, the support for UKIP was for Brexit and for SNP for Scotland to exit from the UK. So there's a logic of simple opportunism.

And to add here, I'm not saying either the UKIP or the SNP are Putinistas. Even if someone (especially in UKIP has had a nice word for Putin earlier).

Every party in that chart is right wing. And all money gained by them from Putin is outweighed a thousand fold by financial ties with normal centrist institutions like gas purchases and real estate.

So...

the evidence, other than merely a failure to support mainstream policy, of "allies" of Putin from the American and European left sufficient to constitute the claimed trend...?

It's really simple. Just name the left wing groups in America and Europe who are allied with Putin. A simple list will do, no need for a chart.

the evidence, other than merely a failure to support mainstream policy, of "allies" of Putin from the American and European left sufficient to constitute the claimed trend...? — Isaac

The claim was about the extreme left and the extreme right, not about the left.

The claim was about the extreme left and the extreme right, not about the left. — Olivier5

Go on then... The extreme left organisations in America and Europe which are 'allied' with Putin to a greater extent than centrists are...?

The extreme left organisations in America and Europe which are 'allied' with Putin to a greater extent than centrists are...? — Isaac

I would start by saying that the link with Putin is clearer and stronger with the extreme right than it is with the extreme left, in my opinion.

Talking about my country, the main party on the left (stradling with the extreme left), La France Insoumise (LFI), has condemned in unambiguous terms Putin's aggression and the crimes of the Russian army on civilian populations. They were more lenient towards Moscow's foreign policy before the invasion, understandably. Nevertheless, even after the invasion, not all their MPs have voted in support of arm deliveries to Ukraine.

As for the French extreme left, most of their micro-partis have a troskist history, so they are historically anti-USSR and anti-NATO. Today this translates into a neutral stance vis à vis this war: neither for Putin nor for Zelensky, as they put it.

So none 'allied' with Putin then?

The point I was making, which no one seems to be able to counter, is that this idea that both the far left and the far right support Putin is just a transparent attempt to smear opposition (particularly left-wing opposition) to US policy.

There simply are no 'allies' of Putin on the left outside of Russia that have any significant impact, and financially, the centrist mainstream have supported his regime with vastly greater effect than any 'radical' group could.

But none of that matters, of course, because @SophistiCat's aim is simply to make support for US policy sound all reasonable and worldly-wise, and opposition to it sound radical and driven by a negative ideology. It's about controlling the narrative. The facts don't really matter.

There simply are no 'allies' of Putin on the left outside of Russia that have any significant impact, ... — Isaac

I would go further, and say that Putin has no impactful allies anywhere in the western world. If any kind of influential "Russia lobby" existed, surely some type of public debate would have formed over the fifteen year period that led up to the war in Ukraine.

Instead we have seen no debate whatsoever, and for example a stance that is critical of the role of the United States in Ukraine, while supported academically, is nowhere to be found in public discourse and even stigmatized.

Alarmism about a "Russia lobby" is probably the work of actual lobbyists trying to, as you said, control the narrative.

I would go further, and say that Putin has no impactful allies anywhere in the western world. — Tzeentch

Politically, you might be right, economically it's business as usual.

Famously, Germany's Gerhard Schröder was until only recently on the board of two Russian state owned energy companies. And according to Robert Horvath (specialist in Russian politics at LaTrobe University)

He's far from the only prominent European political figure who's found an opportunity to convert connections into very well-paid positions working for the Kremlin and helping the Kremlin to exert influence in Europe,

Several US Congress have shares in Russian state owned companies.

According the UK intelligence committee report..

it is notable that a number of members of the House of Lords have business interests linked to Russia, or work directly for major Russian countries linked to the Russian state

according to data from the official Working Party of the Council on Conventional Arms Exports (COARM)

between 2015 and 2020 A third of the European Union’s member states exported arms to the Russian Federation,

...with Disclose (French NGO) reporting

France has sold €152 million worth of military equipment to Russia. A figure confirmed by Investigate Europe’s analysis, and places France far ahead of its neighbours, exporting 44% of European arms to Russia.

...but, hey, all small-fry compared to the absolutely massive support Putin gets from some bikers and the as yet unidentified left wing radicals...

The point I was making, which no one seems to be able to counter, is that this idea that both the far left and the far right support Putin is just a transparent attempt to smear opposition (particularly left-wing opposition) to US policy. — Isaac

I don’t think the Cat is trying to do that. He’s only pointing at the convergence of extremes, a well known phenomenon.

There simply are no 'allies' of Putin on the left outside of Russia that have any significant impact, and financially, the centrist mainstream have supported his regime with vastly greater effect than any 'radical' group could. — Isaac

I can agree with that. They have no impact whatsoever.

But none of that matters, of course, because SophistiCat's aim is simply to make support for US policy sound all reasonable and worldly-wise, and opposition to it sound radical and driven by a negative ideology. — Isaac

I don’t think he cares that much about USFP. The US is far away and unreliable, although under this president, they are far better than under the previous one, and so are we, Europeans.

If @SophistiCat is anything like me, he cares more about Ukraine, Russia and Europe. The future of the whole of Europe is at stake, the way I see it. I mean ´Europe´ geographically, including Russia.

France has sold €152 million worth of military equipment to Russia

That’s minuscule. What did the Russians get for that money? One plane? A hundred rockets?

That’s minuscule. What did the Russians get for that money? One plane? A hundred rockets? — Olivier5

So? The point was only countering the notion that extreme left wing groups are notably allied with Putin. so unless you can find some extreme left wing group which gave €153 million to promote Putin's military capabilities, then you've no argument.

The simple fact is that centrist, mainstream political groups support Putin more than the extremes on either side, and within those extremes no one has provided any evidence at all of any left-wing support whatsoever. So the claim that...

in Europe and America both the far-right and the far-left are Putin's closest allies. — SophistiCat

...is just plain false. Financially, he's gained more from mainstream centrists. Politically, his support is only far-right. By no metric of 'closest' or 'ally' do the European extreme left even figure.

unless you can find some extreme left wing group which gave €153 million to promote Putin's military capabilities, then you've no argument. — Isaac

It's not my argument that the European far left is in bed with Putin, though some of them hate or mistrust NATO enough that they cannot take Ukraine's side.

Note that nobody gave Putin anything. We were talking about (minuscule) sales, not gifts.

Alone at the top?


Lone Putin Observes Christmas at Kremlin Church
By AFP
Updated: one day ago

Russian President Vladimir Putin stood alone at a midnight service at a Kremlin church as he marked Orthodox Christmas darkened by Moscow's assault on Ukraine.

Putin attended the service at the Cathedral of the Annunciation, originally designed as a church for the Russian tsars.

He stood alone as Orthodox priests in golden robes conducted a ceremony holding long candles, pictures released by the Kremlin showed.

In previous years Putin usually attended Orthodox Christmas services in Russian provinces or just outside Moscow.

The Russian Orthodox Church observes Christmas on January 7.

In a message released by the Kremlin on Saturday, Putin congratulated Orthodox Christians, saying the holiday inspired "good deeds and aspirations."

He also praised the Orthodox Church, whose influential head Patriarch Kirill has fully backed Putin's offensive in Ukraine.

Church organisations are "supporting our soldiers taking part in a special military operation," Putin said, using the official Kremlin term for the offensive in Ukraine.

"Such great, multifaceted, truly ascetic work deserves the most sincere respect," he added.

Patriarch Kirill has called on believers to support pro-Russian "brothers" during Moscow's offensive in eastern Ukraine.

In a sermon last year, he said that dying in Ukraine "washes away all sins."

You're really now trying to say you're just engaging in objective analysis without a horse in the race? — “boethius

It's "your endgame" because you're the one proposing it — “boethius

You are "siding with the West" and you propose an “endgame” that is sufficient for the West (The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power) ... so i.e. an endgame you support. — “boethius

That’s my claim: "My understanding how the chess game is played by a couple of players is one thing, my siding with any of them is another.” In other words, one thing is how I understand (not “propose”) the geopolitical endgame of geopolitical agents NATO/US/WEST, another is if I find it desirable and why. So by talking about “my endgame” is misleading because I’m not a geopolitical agent, I’m not West/NATO/US, I’m not the player. Checkmate the opponent is the expected endgame of those who play chess not of the audience or supporters watching the game.
Talking about my understanding and my reasons to prefer one side over the other is neither “proposing” nor “recommending” anything, that’s your language and your aim, which you shouldn’t project on to me. Indeed, I find it twice delusional: as an avg dude, I’m far from assuming to know better or enough how to play the game to “propose” or “recommend” anything to anybody about geopolitical issues, or to have any significant impact on this war directly or indirectly through my posts here.

You then literally just say the exact thing I just says, just you're issue is my "framing".

Again you are conveniently framing the issue as it suits your narrative. Ukrainian lives (namely casualties) are not “The instrument to ‘inflict as much as enduring damage as possible to Russian power’” but the collateral damage of Ukrainian decisions to fight back Russian aggression, direct damage inflicted by Russian decisions on Ukrainians, and indirect collateral damage of Western decisions to support Ukrainians in fighting back Russian aggression. As collateral damage is Ukrainian lives, this poses a moral dilemma of course. — neomac

Collateral damage to Ukrainian lives would make sense if NATO was fighting with Russia in Ukrainian territory, then Ukrainian lives lost would be unfortunate collateral damage.
That's not the case, NATO isn't fighting. — “boethius

Talking about Ukrainians casualties as “collateral damage” was an objection to your picturing Ukrainians casualties as “instrumental to” fighting Russia. What’s evident is that Ukrainians casualties (among soldiers and civilians) are not instrumental to the West, but to Russia. It’s Russia which kills Ukrainian soldiers and civilians to damage Ukrainian manpower and moral to fight, not the West. Whatever “evil” second end you attribute to the West still needs to be demonstrated.

Why is there a moral dilemma? Because achieving the policy objective you set (and US / NATO doesn't have much problem admitting to) of inflicting enduring damage on the Russian military is not the same objective as Ukrainian welfare, which I have zero problem saying can involve some fighting (the first weeks of fighting is certainly preferable to total capitulation and humiliation, but it's after demonstrating your honour on the international stage, is the optimum time to sue for peace and accept a compromise as a smaller nation) but (regardless of when peace is sought) fighting for the welfare of Ukrainians is a much more constrained criteria than fighting to harm the Russians. Saying "they both want to fight the Russians so they both want the same thing" is simply totally wrong: "fighting the Russian insofar as it's in the interest of Ukrainians" is a very different objective than "fighting the Russians insofar as it damages the Russians".
This is why "the US / NATO fighting to the last Ukrainian" has been a focal point of debate since the beginning of the war, because, obviously, if the goal is simply to maximise damage to Russia then what follows from that would be "fighting to the last Ukrainian". It's a way of saying the objectives of Ukraine and US / NATO are not the same, which US / NATO don't really have a problem saying.
For example, saying Putin and Russia must "pay a cost" for breaking the international "rules based order" is exact same idea, maybe with slight "narrative framing" differences. It is not saying "we must ensure Ukrainian welfare is the top priority, which may require compromise with Russia”, but it clearly means the priority is damaging Russia so the war is costly, which means pouring arms into Ukraine as they are doing the fighting, which means Ukrainians are the instrument of this policy, not the beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are all who benefit from the "international rules based order" and if the entirety of Ukraine is sacrificed for this policy then "mission accomplished”. — “boethius

I argued against this already in previous posts, so I’ll expand a bit more. From the plausible assumption that separate geopolitical agents have different endgames, you can conjecture a case of intentional exploitation by the West of the Ukrainians ("the US / NATO fighting to the last Ukrainian”, “pouring arms into Ukraine as they are doing the fighting, which means Ukrainians are the instrument of this policy, not the beneficiaries”). I get it, this possibility is consistent with that single plausible assumption. But there are other plausible assumptions to consider: a part from missing a conceptual point about the notion of “sovereignty” which I’ll discuss later, your conjecture doesn’t take into account what relevant factors can likely and significantly constrain such possibility.
On one side, the conjecture of the Ukrainian exploitation by a greater power is not historically implausible, indeed that’s arguably what Russian empire and Soviet Union actually did. And that’s arguably the historical reason why Ukrainians (like Stepan Bandera) preferred to collaborate with the Nazis to fight Soviet Union (Nazis didn’t oppress, murder and exploit Ukrainians as the Soviet Union did), and to join now the Western sphere of influence more than Russian sphere of influence. The Ukrainians have already decided long ago that the advancement of their welfare & lives is better served outside the Russian sphere of influence and they are ready to fight for that and sacrifice lives as they fought and sacrificed lives in the past. Add to that the potential benefits of Westernization as experienced by other Eastern European countries previously under Soviet Union sphere of influence that joined EU/NATO (like their neighbour Poland) unlike other Eastern European countries which remained under Russian sphere of influence (like their neighbour Belarus).
On the other side it’s not reasonable to expect that Westerners military support to Ukraine is just about Russian military defeat and smearing campaign against Russia to deflect from Western hypocrisy and exploitation. As I said elsewhere, power is not grounded only on brute force and deception but also on consensus, reputation, cooperation, partnership wrt competitors, so it’s on those grounds too that the West is competing against Russia. And that’s how the West managed to appeal to Eastern European countries previously under Soviet Union sphere of influence. Given the Ukrainian willingness to join the Western sphere of influence and the Ukrainian strategic importance to the West, there is significant room for a consensual, mutually beneficial and long term systemic political, economic, security integration. So this war can clearly become a crucial testbed for building the mutual trust between West and Ukraine amenable to greater cooperation. And Westerners can’t reasonably build trust through broad and crass exploitation of Ukrainians as “cannon fodder”, nor reap the benefits of Russian military humiliation by letting Ukrainians lose (especially after the discrediting conclusion of the American war in Afghanistan and China’s incumbent military threat). BTW these circumstances are very different from the ones surrounding the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. That’s why to me the analogy to those cases to discredit the West or the US doesn’t hold in a relevant sense.
Said that, real life is rarely linear and predictable as one could argue under plausible assumptions, in any case the impression from the news I read so far is that the West is more hesitant (for certain reasons, including not provoking Russia to actually escalate to the worst scenarios despite the escalatory threats) about providing military support to Ukrainians than the Ukrainians are about fighting with whatever they get from the West and despite the risks of escalation (BTW, interestingly, even Poland and Baltic states do not seem to worry too much over possible Russian escalations, despite being the closest targets to Russia). It has never been the case that Ukrainians didn’t want to fight, and the West forced them to fight against their will. On the contrary there are evidences that show Ukrainians pressuring Westerners to increase their military support (more weapons now) or even change the nature of engagement (no flight zone, Russia attacked a NATO country, etc.) or making bold declarations about their possible victory (namely getting back all occupied/annexed territories, including Crimea and Donbas) despite Western hesitancy or lack of commitment or vagueness about this. There are even plausible evidences of Ukrainian actions within Russian territory (e.g. the killing of Dugin’s daughter) not supported by Westerners and therefore arguably exploitative of Western trust by the Ukrainians.
And notice that I’m not conflating “Ukrainians fighting against their will” with “Ukrainians fighting against their interest”. But while I find the latter case open for debate way more than the former, at the same time I find a view that identifies Ukrainians’ interest independently or even in open conflict with what Ukrainians actually want more hardly defensible (the way you downplayed their views as in “territory and national pride” exemplifies such kind of patronising attitude). What’s Ukrainian best interest will likely remain controversial, one way or the other. And inability to fix such controversy in a principled way is something we must learn to live with.

Sure, but as you yourself admit there's a "moral dilemma" in the Western support of Ukraine for the purposes of harming the Russians, as it is not the same thing as supporting Ukrainian welfare.

So, if Ukrainian welfare is sacrificed for a goal that is not Ukrainian welfare, the moral responsibility for our policies cannot just be then shifted to the Ukrainian leadership and "Ukrainian people" (insofar as we equate them with Ukrainian leadership), we are still responsible for our own policies and what we are trying to achieve. Just because you want to kill someone doesn't mean I am justified in giving you the weapon to do it. Even if you were justified in your desire to kill (say self defence) and I was justified in helping you do that, even then it does not justify any form of lethal support. As Isaac pointed out, self defence vis-a-vis your neighbour doesn't justify nuking the whole city. As the provider of lethal support, I'd still be responsible for the outcome and how my actions contributed to the outcome.

Whenever the cost to Ukraine of the Western policy is pointed out, essentially all the supporters of the policy here and elsewhere just throw their hands up and say “Ukrainians want to fight!" and seem to believe that completely unburdens them of the consequences of the policy.

But as you say yourself, there's a "moral dilemma". If you want to support this policy and argue in good faith, then solve the moral dilemma, rather than move the goal posts around for your own arguments so much that the "game" your playing is now entirely made of goal posts. We're literally walking on goal posts. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, let’s notice that you didn’t offer any positive example or criteria to clarify what form of lethal support are justified to you.
Second, and more importantly, there is a huge inconvenience with moral judgements: while legal judgments can count on certain conditions that to some extent enforce epistemic convergence among a plurality of subjects with potentially conflicting interests, that’s not the case with moral judgements. A legal system has a unique and codified body of detailed norms, procedures, ways of appealing to them followed by experts that ensure the judgement comes to an end and is applied to actual cases of legal infraction denounced with a minimum of pertinent evidence in a codified format. Moral judgement is hardly the result of a moral system analogous to the legal system: indeed it’s an inalienable task that anybody can engage in at any time, with different sets of principles that can be applied differently by different individuals in different circumstances (you yourself admit the possibility of moral agents with different values), evidences can be volatile or easily replaced by unconstrained hypotheticals (e.g. in the case of moral hazards or conflict of interests), and remains open for debate. This inconvenience impacts also the issue of “taking responsibility” for certain policies. Indeed, the difficulty of ensuring epistemic convergence in the moral domain spurs controversies also on moral responsibility attributions.
This predicament shows the importance of the international legal system as a reference: as long as a state is considered “sovereign” responsibility for its policies can not be shifted to a superior authority or shared with allies or international aid (no matter what the power relations with other countries is). So even if the West does knowingly and intentionally provide useful military aid to Ukraine to fight against Russia for whatever second end, Ukrainian decision to fight against Russia thanks to the Western military aid and accountability for collateral damages, is entirely on Ukraine as a sovereign state. So no other government than the Ukrainian one is expected to not only commit to but also make full sense of the imperative “we must ensure Ukrainian welfare is the top priority, which may require compromise with Russia” from the Ukrainian perspective.
The legal notion of “sovereignty” offers also a clear understanding of who is the victim and who is the aggressor in this war. No Russian security concerns can obscure the fact that Russia is violating the territorial integrity of a widely acknowledged sovereign state (by Russia too) and forcing a revision of international relations built around such acknowledgement. Russia didn’t suffer any actual/imminent aggression from Ukraine to justify this war against Ukraine and annexation of Ukrainian territories. The Ukrainian resistance is morally defensible as a right to self-defence. So ZERO legal (and moral) legitimacy for Russia, as confirmed by the UN resolutions.
Also political regimes help understand political agency and responsibility attribution. In Western democracies the decision process is more distributed over people and time than in authoritarian regimes, and it relies on accountability conditions harder to manipulate by any central government than in autocracies, that’s why it’s harder to pin down the responsibilities of NATO enlargement threat on Biden than Putin’s reactions to such threat. Even if you believe that the American lobbies are so powerful that can rig the game, the problem is that policies in support of Ukraine and against Russia (sanctions and military aid) are shared by many Western countries each of them with their powerful lobbies and their military/intelligence expertise , so it’s unlikely that such policies would be adopted by these Western countries if such policies didn’t make sense to them. And it’s also unlikely that Ukrainian politicians, intelligence and diplomacy significantly failed to have a good grasp of Western understanding of this war, interest in this war and support to Ukraine in all these months.
You can still spin your conspiracy bias to speculate about evil and impunity everywhere among Western political elites and lobbies, then my objection still remains, national and international competition among political elites and lobbies plus unintended consequences can still create favourable conditions for Ukrainian welfare. And if you want to speculate against that too, I’ll leave it at that, yet I do wonder what on earth are you hoping to achieve against such all mighty forces.

Concerning the issue of “solving the moral dilemma”, what do you mean by it? Decision makers may be honestly facing some moral dilemma, favour one horn of the dilemma for certain reasons (however controversial!), act accordingly, and yet be plagued with doubts for the rest of their lives. What would you say in this case? Was the moral dilemma solved or not? As long as moral choices involve uncertainty and strategic choices indeed involve uncertainties one has to live with moral dilemmas and the controversies they spur (e.g. consider nuclear bombing Japan in WW2 as a moral dilemma, was it worth it? What could we say then? What could we say now?).

I've accused you of moving the goalposts of you arguments around rather than just arguing what you actually believe (that the endgame is to "inflict enduring damage on Russia", which causes "collateral damage" in pursuit of that goal, that causes a moral dilemma).
I have argued the justifications you present are insufficient, such as a UN general assembly vote being some sort of "normative / legal justification", or, even if it was (which it isn't), then totally incompatible with supporting the US despite the US ignoring UN generally assembly votes all the time. More importantly for the actual debate we're having, the “normative / legal" argument isn't your actual justification but rather supporting the West, and US hegemony in particular, generally speaking. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, legally speaking, the UN resolution is a legal justification for national policies, it has legal consequences, it’s not just a demoscopic survey. If the UN resolution established that Russian is illegal, and a government takes countermeasures against Russia because, among others, it violated international law, then the UN resolution is taken as a legal justification of such measures. Indeed what would be the point of having a General Assembly resolution if it had zero effects on national policies? Evidently, states that are not attacked by Russia nor suffering violations of bilateral agreements by Russia, still need a plausible reason to issue policies against Russian aggression in support of legitimate Ukrainians’ solicitations. The UN resolution does the job. As we said, and you agreed on it, if international law resolutions are not binding or coercing, yet they can succeed in coordinating the behavior among states. And that is what happened.
Anyway, second point and most importantly, that’s an irrelevant point wrt what I was originally arguing, which is about strategy and threat perception (that’s why I accused you of shifting polemic target from strategy to legal). Strategy for geopolitical agents is about threat perception and response to counter actual/potential threat. One can then add rational constraints on threat perception and response to deepen the analysis. Now, strategically speaking, Russia is clearly an actual threat to the West: it has means to threat the West, it has motives to threat the West, it acted against Western interests in many significant ways, and its propaganda is expressly and bitterly against the West and West-led World Order. The case of the UN resolution corroborates this point: since that resolution expresses the Western wide condemnation of Russian aggression, discounting or discrediting such resolution by Russia signals intentional opposition to Western will and defiant delegitimisation of the Western World Order (https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-moscow-23bb0ba759d877c4525082e921544910).
Third, you keep framing your objections by assuming a notion of “justification” which I neither am committed to nor I find conceptually intelligible. Indeed, you yourself are incapable of offering anything that one can positively consider as a “justification” in this war. You can just shift the burden of proof on your opponent and then object how they fail based on your arbitrary conjectures. Not to mention your tendency to repeatedly misunderstand and caricature your opponent’s views which make it hard to converge on anything relevant to the topic. Said that, in my exchanges with your and others, I offered arguments to clarify my understanding of Western decision makers and arguments to clarify my political support to them. To me an argument can broadly count as “justification” if it’s validly inferred from certain shared premises (“shared” by those who understand them and/or find them empirically plausible in a similar way). So if I and you share premises and inference rules we MUST converge. If we don’t, then either it’s a limited and recoverable intellectual failure (which we should be able to fix in a few iterations affordable to avg dudes as we are) or you are simply unintelligible to me. Justifications in support of a certain policy may depend on different domain-specific premises (moral, legal, political, strategic, etc.) and among these arguments there might be some significant convergence in their conclusions. I find Western policies justified based on different but converging domain-specific assumptions which I tried to expose to you and other opponents. So until you prove you share enough facts, concepts and understanding of related arguments the way I do, it’s hard for you to sound intellectually compelling to me.

There are four central issues to what you actually believe.

1. First being the justification of US hegemony in the geopolitical struggle with Russia, but more importantly China. Now, like yourself, I prefer to live in the West than in China or Russia, however, this is equatable with seeking hegemonic control / influence / containment of China and its neighbours. My approach would be a "lead by example" policy and not picking fights that get hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed and injured and destroying half or more of the Ukrainian economy, in seeking to harm Russia, which benefits China so seems to me entirely counter productive on the geopolitical hegemonic "chess game" in any case.

2. Bringing to the second point which is this policy really does advance US hegemony and Western leadership of the whole world. — “boethius

Not sure what you mean by “lead by example” policy. Could you explain by means of historical “lead by example” cases?
Anyways, it seems you are repeating the same point exposed earlier. Briefly, the US should accept all Russian deal-breaker demands in return for peace in Ukraine, and get ready for China. OK let’s say the US does what you recommend. What if China attacks Taiwan, encouraged by Western recoil from the human and material costs of the war? What would the US be justified to do then? Fighting directly against China? Or start a “proxy war” like in Ukraine? Wouldn’t the US meddling in China’s sphere of influence risk any nuclear war escalation then? Wouldn’t be Taiwanese people pawns of American hegemony? Or worst American lobbies? Does the US have greater chance to win against China than to win against Russia? If Russia won’t win but it won’t lose in Ukraine, wouldn’t it be the same for China in Taiwan? What would the UN Security Council’s resolution likely be then?
BTW what do you think Russia will do then, support China or the US or remain neutral? Or what if then Russia attacks again Ukraine (or Moldova) while the US is at war with China? After all Russia didn’t keep its promises to Ukraine already once (see Budapest Memorandum), not to mention that recognising Ukrainian independency in 1992 or so didn’t mean shit to Russia either, and that Putin does not consider Ukraine a separate nation from Russia.

3. And lastly, that the sacrifice of Ukraine to advance this policy is morally justified. At least the US was fighting in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and there's at least honour to that and suffering the consequences of the policy. It is impossible to ignore the fact that when parties are armed to do the fighting for us, that this creates an intense moral hazard, moreover when any criticism of the leadership and war is banned in the country, we wholeheartedly condone and promote propaganda for "morale" purposes and winning the "information war" with Russia (i.e. we cannot even say there's some sort of informed consent) and (make matter morally worse) we produce a lot of the propaganda ourselves (encouraging belief that the side we need to fight can "win" when our military and civilian leadership may be fully aware that is very unlikely) leading to decisions on false pretences, and, also important, if pouring money and arms into the country is de facto bribing the leadership of that country who benefit immensely in both legal and illegal ways from all this money and arms pouring in.
4. That anytime the goal posts change to "Ukrainian sovereignty!" then why aren't Western armies in Ukraine defending this alleged priority?

These are not "accusations" but just what your position actually entails. If harming Russia is the objective, and Ukrainians are doing the fighting, and the West is arming and bankrolling and "advising", then it simply goes with that position that it's entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that this setup will result in Ukrainians fighting beyond their own self interest (which I have zero problem recognising involves some fighting).

In other words, we may have already (I would definitely argue this), and if not, may very well in the future, sacrifice Ukrainian welfare to pursue the West's priority in this situation, which is, to boil it down, "not letting Putin get away with it!”. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, you are offering a list of conjectures whose plausibility rests only on what you claim conceivable. Without evidence there is no way to assess if your conjectures are actually true or even likely nor how relevant they are wrt what is at stake.
Second, it seems you can’t imagine other than worst scenarios (especially discrediting the West) while ignoring factors (i.e. how risky and costly abusive behavior can be, or how beneficial honest cooperation an be) that hedge against such scenarios.
Third, the limitations of liberties is normal and legitimate praxis during war time even for any Western democracy. Indeed, even if the limitations of liberties wouldn’t preventively reduce the risk of abuses, yet reviewing mistakes and responsibility can be done afterwards once the emergency is over. Most importantly, acknowledging such moral hazard would not be enough to give up on such limitations. Were this the case any democracy would be highly vulnerable to any authoritarian regime that does not need to worry about morality, people’s welfare and accountability. In other words, in order to avoid a moral hazard (Westerns exploiting Ukrainians), you are submitting to a greater moral hazard by letting Russians re-play the same game (including the nuclear blackmail because if it worked once, it could work again) once they have recovered from this war, which will certainly be facilitated by an immediate pro-Russian peace deal. Worst then this, your argument severely undermines Western democracies’ security concerns in favor of any authoritarian competitors (China included) because literally anybody can always conjecture worst scenarios like escalation to MAD, exploitation by greedy lobbies, greater numbers of deaths, etc. that would make any military opposition and security countermeasures worth it. That’s the fallacious slippery slope I was talking about.
Fifth, your recommendations to Western decision makers are grounded on de facto irrational expectations because they totally ignore or underestimate something that decision makers of any country in the whole known human history have to realistically deal with as top priority, namely security concerns, instead of taking into account what realistic conditions and to what extent they can be harmonised with people’s welfare.

Does “you cannot justify to others” mean that my claims are not justified until I can prove that everybody on earth agrees with me?! — neomac


“Justification” has a social function definition of justifying to others. If a judge asks for your "justification" for some actions, the request is to justify to the judge not yourself. When a justification is only to oneself, we say "self justification" to clarify that no one else is intended to be convinced by the argument.

For example, if you were caught taking something and this led to a trial, "I wanted it" is not a good justification in this context; this self-justification goes without saying and not the issue at trial (no harm in mentioning it, obviously you took the thing because you wanted it) so if you started your explanation with "well I wanted it" unlikely anyone would disagree, but a adequate justification in this context would be some right to the thing (there was a deal for example, that the counter party is now denying) or then some particular circumstance (some emergency, for example, or then you actually thought it was lost and took it to "return it" to the owner etc.).

That's just what the word justification means.

Of course, one can propose nothing is justified, there is no justice, all moral language is for the purposes of rationalising and manipulation. But, even in this position, the word "justification" still refers to the attempt to convince others your actions are just. (only everyone, perhaps even yourself, is always deceived about it, there is no "actual" justification for anything, life has no purpose other than pursuing your inclinations and desires, which are accidental to your genes and upbringing and themselves not justified either, just nothing else to do).

Anyways, essentially no one, certainly not myself, argues that a position is justified only after a everyone agrees, which creates immediately the problem of why anyone would believe it's true if it's not true until everyone believes it's true. The "truth" (or then meaninglessness of the issue) of a justification is independent of anyone's belief about it. Your actions maybe justified and a judge and everyone else disagrees. Indeed, your actions maybe justified and you yourself are convinced it was actually wrong later.

The point of getting into the meaning of justification, is that what people propose as their justification maybe a lie. So, it is entirely reasonable to speculate as the real motivations behind what people do. Now, the actual (secret in this case) justification maybe true and following from that the lies about it are also justified, or then maybe both are not-justified. Or, the more confusing situation but entirely possible, is one uses a true justification to advance a hidden objective that is similar to but not actually the same or even compatible with the true justification.

For example, I maybe entirely justified in helping a traveller in distress, but if my true intentions are to simply gain this travellers trust for the purposes of stealing from them, then my actions up to that point only appear entirely justified but it is in actuality part of a deception. So, a true justification can also be a lie, that it only even possibly revealed in the future. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, let’s remind that you claimed of me “so you support Western policies regardless of justification” and you also claimed “‘justification’ still refers to the attempt to convince others your actions are just”. In all my posts (not only with you) I offered moral, legal, and strategic reasons to back up my claims about the Western support of Ukraine and my picking side, if that doesn’t count to you as an attempt to convince others my claims are “just” in the sense of “justified” or grounded “some emergency” (e.g. the Russian security threat to the West) or “some right” (e.g. supporting Ukrainian right to self-defence) then I don’t know what is. In other words your accusation against me is false according to your own understanding of “justification to others”.
Second, you may claim I didn’t succeed to convince you. But I don’t see how this constitute a rational challenge even within your conceptual framework: indeed you believe that one can be justified independently from others agreeing with him. So I can be justified even if you disagree with me.
Third, concerning you, since you also believe that even “true justification” can still be a lie, and that even lie can still be “justified”, you seem up for an endless speculative regress. No wonder if you prefer doing something entirely different: indeed it’s “entirely reasonable” (why “entirely reasonable”? It could also be “entirely paranoid”!) for you to speculate about hidden objectives as defamatory as possible (only concerning the West/US of course, because Russia has no hidden objectives, no evil lobbies, no fighting to the last Caucasians and Asians as “cannon fodder” for the holy invincible Rus’ warrior race, no worst scenarios for Ukrainians after surrendering to Russian demands you feel like speculating about, just pure and legitimate intentions from Russia right?) regardless of truth/falsity of any justification, to convince others that you do not have hidden objectives and your online anonymous recommendations are so powerful that can actually save lives, you yourself are demonstrating exactly how your “moral language is for the purposes of rationalising and manipulation”.

since you believe the following “Certainly we would want law to conform to our normative disposition, but until A. all people have the same values and B. little or no corruption exists, then that won't be the case” how can we possibly justify (in your terms) our position to others if they do not share our values or we can’t assure that little or no corruption exists? — neomac

We may not be able to, but we try nevertheless. For example, the Byzantine Empire would argue theology with the various caliphates they were in contact with. Neither side expected to convince / convert the other, but they would still make the attempt. Lot's of reasons for this: vis-a-vis the other party in the debate it can be simply a sign of respect to argue one's position, as it recognises the other party's arguments at least have the merit of being responded to, and it can also be for the purposes of just maintaining a polite dialogue with people you may need to deal with to avoid wars or do business etc. or then it could be for internal reasons of just impressing your own court with "proofs" that the heathens are wrong (or for all these purposes) or then just an obvious task of one's own theologians to prove the faith etc.

However, what’s a norm, what's normative, and what's legal are not the same thing. Certainly the goal of society is to harmonise all three, and for some things that happens to be the case, but you cannot deduce one from another. Simply because something is a norm does not mean it it normative nor legal. From my position in corporate management, people break the law literally all the time with no consequences. — “boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, I asked you “how can we possibly justify (in your terms) our position to others if they do not share our values or we can’t assure that little or no corruption exists?”, the fact that people try things doesn’t mean that what they try to achieve can be possibly achieved. You can try to fly by flapping your arms yet that doesn’t mean it is physically possible for you to fly.
Second, I don’t remember you clarified anywhere the difference between norm, normative, and legal. To me “norm” and “normative” is like “law” and “legal”, so the distinction is more grammatical than semantic. While the distinction between “norm” and “law” is semantic, “laws” are a subclass of “norms”. Nothing more fancy about it. The point however is that I asked you about “how we can possibly justify” our position to others, while you are talking about the difference between norm, normative, and legal, and pointed to the fact that society’s goal is to harmonise all three. So you didn’t answer my question at all.
Third, to me, when we try to rationally justify our claims/actions to others, we are showing what consistent set of rules we expect people to follow or commit themselves to under some realistic conditions. So I don’t see how we can successfully justify anything to others if the set of rules and/or the understanding of what can be achieved is not shared. In the case of our exchange, since the disagreement persists, then we likely do not share relevant consistent set of rules and/or expectations about what can be realistically achieved (e.g. in the case of corruption or moral hazards). We do not even seem to agree on several relevant concepts (e.g. normative, security guarantee, straw man argument, justification), go figure.

what do you mean by “require recognising legitimate grievances of the Russians”? — neomac


This was discussed at length near the very beginning of this discussion, but, in short, if you want to negotiate a dispute with a party the first step is to recognise legitimate grievances of the other party (i.e. grievances that you yourself agree are reasonable and can do something about). Generally, everyone has some legitimate grievances in any situation, and the more complex the situation the more legitimate grievances everyone has, if you want to negotiate a settlement then the first step is to layout all the grievances of all the parties on the table and see if everyone can at least agree those are all legitimate points of view. The other essential starting element is the leverage each party has. Based on these two things, perhaps it is possible to come up with an arrangement acceptable to all the parties that is preferable to further conflict.

If you ignore someone's grievances then they are unlikely to accept anything you propose. Now, "legitimate" is prepended to "grievances" as maybe someone grievances are simply unreasonable (at least to you) and you can do nothing to solve them. “Legitimate grievance" is something you yourself agrees the counter party has a point about and an agreement would need to resolve, compensate or address in some way.

The position that Russia is 100% wrong about everything and has no legitimate points or grievances, is simply the position of refusing to negotiate and the choice of more warfare, which maybe justified, but the West and Zelensky like to present demands obviously Russia would never accept and just deny any problems on their own side. Like the very real Nazi's with significant influence, whether there is enough to justify invasion or not, it's clearly a legitimate grievance that the West should also have a problem with. Also expansion of NATO is also a legitimate grievance, considering NATO is quite clearly an anti-Russia organisation. Engaging in the self-justification of NATO expansion, just insisting that of course it's anti-Russian because Russia is the threat and countries want protection from Russia and getting into NATO and expanding NATO closer to Russia is not a threat to Russia because NATO's intentions are pure, people can do ... but, if you don't intend to negotiate. Obviously, my "anti-you" alliance will be perceived as a threat from your point of view. That Westerners can say we place these missiles closer to Russia but that's not like "a threat" to Russia is dumb if the goal is to negotiate with Russia.

A negotiated peace would be by definition a compromise. An uncompromising peace is what's called a surrender. So, listing uncompromising demands that Russia then obviously rejects, is a convoluted, bad faith way of saying there is no desire for negotiation, the surrender of Russia is preferable, for the purposes of propaganda. The problem is if you can't actually force Russia to surrender then this sort of language prolongs the war.

The problem the West has created by encouraging Zelensky to be uncompromising and make delusional statements while also insisting all negotiation must be with Zelensky, without the other powers involved at the table, is that basically any compromise on anything is now a Russian in Zelensky's framework.

Peace negotiations can be dealt with as quid-pro-quo without recognising any legitimate grievances, like a prisoner exchange, so why would this be required as a first step for a peace negotiation? — neomac


In order to engage in a quid pro quo, you need to recognise those are in fact legitimate grievances (such as return of prisoners) to then arrive at an agreement about it. Your own side negotiating needs to do this process at least internally (hear what others have to say, what they want, etc.). Whether something is recognised explicitly in public is a form of compensation, and is not a requirement as you say. However, anyone doing any actual diplomacy with Russia (with an intention of resolving the conflict) would need themselves to evaluate legitimate grievances that are reasonable to address in a settlement, and likewise anyone simply analysing the situation and trying to what sort of resolution the war is possible must do the same (to have any chance of proposing some practical insights).

Is it something that needs to be officially recorded anywhere? With what potential/likely legal and propaganda cost/benefit and strategic implications?
What kind of “legitimate grievances” are you talking about and in what sense you consider them “legitimate”? — neomac


As I explain above, the important recognition is internal to the negotiating parties (if they genuinely seek a resolution; if not you just say whatever you want). How these legitimate grievances are then recognised in an agreement can be through explicit recognition and compensation (but this is pretty rare in a settlement, as one of the benefits of a settlement is not recognising any wrong doing), so usually it's simply recognised in compensation and horse-trading, and between nations there can be entirely secret arrangements. — “boethius

I too welcome the possibility of an affordable compromise that takes into account all parties’ interests to some extent and spare further bloodshed, at some point. Yet I find very problematic talking about Russian “legitimate grievance” the way you do for the following reasons:

First, let’s notice that there is some mismatch between your notion of “justification” and your notion of “legitimacy” (as in “legitimate grievance”) because the former doesn’t require agreement (“Your actions maybe justified and a judge and everyone else disagrees”) while latter does (“‘Legitimate grievance’ is something you yourself agrees the counter party has a point about”). The mismatch seems confirmed also in your previous statement (“Like the very real Nazi's with significant influence, whether there is enough to justify invasion or not, it's clearly a legitimate grievance that the West should also have a problem with”). And this mismatch may explain your wording in the case of the prisoner exchange where prisoners to be returned are considered “legitimate grievance”. However, even if hearing what somebody wants is necessary for an effective quid-pro-quo, to my understanding that doesn’t equate to a recognition of a “legitimate grievance” as you unexpectedly suggest. To me, “legitimate grievance” is more commonly understood as “justified grievance”: i.e. “legitimate grievance” is a complaint about shared legal/moral/contractual rules that have been violated, not a request expressing what somebody wants or a complaint about one failed to get, or expected to get for whatever other reason, and which doesn’t need to be controversial (from your own example “if you were caught taking something and this led to a trial, ‘I wanted it’ is not a good justification in this context”). And clarifying what “justified grievances” are among parties can also help settle responsibility attributions.

Second, let’s also notice that talking about Russian “legitimate grievance” doesn’t even seem to follow conclusively from your own conspiracist speculations. Indeed, either Western agreement about Russian “legitimate concern” is honest, but then how come that all of a sudden there are no more hidden objectives or worst scenarios you can speculate about against the West? Or Western agreement is dishonest, so there are hidden objectives motivated by Western greed, lust for power, cynicism, phobias, but against whom this time? Ukraine, Russia, the West itself or else? In any case, it’s hard to understand how, given your own speculations, practically the West/NATO/US doesn’t give a shit about Ukrainian lives (it wants to sacrifice them), the Ukrainian president doesn’t give a shit about Ukrainian lives (he cares more about national pride and territory), Russia doesn’t give a shit about Ukrainian lives (they are killing them), and yet all the three can still manage to agree on the right peace deal that saves Ukrainian lives and welfare from greed, lust for power, cynicism, phobias, corruption of any administration involved in this war. If so, why should we believe that agreeing with Russian legitimate grievances and its demands as bad or worst than losing more Ukrainian lives? After peace, both Russia and Ukraine could still prosecute, repress, torture and kill a number of Ukrainian civilians accusing them of collaborationism which is equal to the number of killed Ukrainian civilians at any time during this war + 1.

Third, if Russian “legitimate grievance” (like NATO enlargement, denazification, Crimea) is taken as “justified grievance” to support Russian demands (otherwise what would be the point of talking about Russian “legitimate grievance”?), then their alleged “legitimacy” clashes with how I understand Western shared notions of politics [1], geopolitics (when great powers compete they do not ought to be fair or treat each other equally, what they primarily ought to do concerns more likely their national security, even if at the expense of other countries’ national security), international law (sovereignty, UN charter, treaties), history [2], morality (how can Russians aggress and kill their “brother” Ukrainians just for “territory and national pride”?). Unless, of course, Russian grievances and related demands are reframed entirely to make them compatible with Western shared notions, which implies that Russian deal-breaker demands won’t be accepted as such: e.g. concerning Crimea, there could be a UN supervised referendum about the autonomous or independent status of Crimea. Or alternatively there is a way to freeze the war, suspend and address matters of rights at a later time, in the hope that time could fix what can not be diplomatically fixed now.

Fourth, concerning the public/private nature of the Western acknowledgement of Russian grievances, if the recognition is public then there might be great reputational costs that one needs to be taken into account. Given the incompatibility I was talking about previously, I can’t figure out this situation other than a zero-sum-game i.e. more legitimacy for the West than less legitimacy for Russia, and vice versa. So by addressing Russian requests the way I suggested above, without delegitimising the West this could be a serious problem for Russia. On the other side, if that acknowledgement remains private matter, the problem is that verba volant, scripta manent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verba_volant,_scripta_manent) and the situation is analogous to the alleged promise from the US administration to the Soviet Union administration to never expand a single inch east. If that promise actually occurred as a private agreement, it allows plausible (if not legitimate) deniability. If it didn’t occur, then Russia can again invent its own alternative truth about Western recognition of its legitimate grievances without any such private recognition from the West actually happening. So the only evidence that has a stronger chance to pierce people’s mind in favour of Russia is a public recognition of Russian legitimate grievance as an admission of Western/Ukrainian culpability or weakness. After all how serious can be taken a recognition of Russian legitimate grievances if it’s just matter of responsible people coping with the tantrums of a delusional dictator with a bunch of “white lies" behind doors? Conclusion: if Putin is de facto striving for international status and recognition (in line with changing the World Order with his Chinese ally), then he must likely pursue public recognition of his “legitimate grievances”.

[1]
“During Ukraine's post-Soviet history, the far-right has remained on the political periphery and been largely excluded from national politics since independence in 1991.[2][3] Unlike most Eastern European countries which saw far-right groups become permanent fixtures in their countries' politics during the decline and fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the national electoral support for far-right parties in Ukraine only rarely exceeded 3% of the popular vote.[4] Far-right parties usually enjoyed just a few wins in single-mandate districts, and no far right candidate for president has ever secured more than 5 percent of the popular vote in an election.[4] Only once in the 1994–2014 period was a radical right-wing party elected to the parliament as an independent organization within the proportional part of the voting: Svoboda in 2012.[4] Since then even at the height of nationalist sentiment during and after Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russo-Ukrainian War far-right parties have failed to gain enough votes to attain political representation.[4] The far-right was heavily represented among the pro-Russian separatists with several past or current leaders of the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk linked to various neo-Nazi, white supremacists and ultra nationalists groups. The importance of the far-right on both sides of the conflict declined over time.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics_in_Ukraine

[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_nationalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_imperialism#Internal_colonization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Late_1930s_and_wartime:_Russian_comes_to_the_fore

What kind of “legitimate grievances” are you talking about and in what sense you consider them “legitimate”? — neomac


The main on is of course NATO expansion. When Russia mentions moving missiles and forward operating bases and so on closer to Russia is a threat to Russia, that's obviously true. One of the quid pro quo agreements with Russia in the expansion of NATO was that missile bases wouldn't advance. The actual military threats are hardware and personnel, not the actual NATO treaty, so bringing countries into NATO is one thing, and actually advancing NATO hardware, systems and soldiers is another.

In terms of real military analysis, the central military justification for Russia war is that NATO installed a missile base in the Baltics. That NATO says it was to protect against Iran and is only missile defence is entirely meaningless if you want to negotiate an end to a conflict with Russia.

There is actually a stable form of NATO enlargement in making NATO bigger but not only moving little to no hardware closer to Russia but the Easter-European states themselves becoming more stable vis-a-vis Russia and also each other and both lowering their defence expenditures because they are in NATO as well as depending on NATO command structures to function so unable really to do any independent military actions anyways. For, previous to NATO expansion you can have disputes between East-European countries entirely unrelated to Russia or NATO but that then draft Russia and/or NATO into the conflict and the it growing into a regional conflict and getting out of control. Prior to NATO directly threatening Russia with advancing missile bases and proposing Georgia and Ukraine join NATO (and notice the combination of abandoning the quid pro quo of not advancing advanced hardware will also wanting to expand right to Russia's border, is something any general would say warrants a war, and there'd be only political reasons not to go to war; this is a sad reality of NATO's actions over the last decades, that this war is totally provoked and any NATO member would evaluate things militarily exactly the same as Russia has).

So, obviously if NATO wants peace with Russia it will likely have to recognise it has to take a less threatening posture with Russia. Advancing missile bases is particular stupid if the goal is peace. Obviously, neutral Ukraine are removing the missile base would be one way of recognising this grievance. If you want Ukraine in NATO, then to convince the Russians you'd need to propose a lot more compensation for that, but that seems essentially an impossible deal, but maybe there's some sort of "NATO light" version or something.

There are definitely the Nazi's in Ukraine. As a Westerner I don't think that should be acceptable to the West, let alone the Russians. And if you look into the issue with reporting pre-invasion, these are definitely Nazi institutions with enormous power and influence in Ukraine. It should be, first of all, Western policy to not support and arm Nazi’s. That Western media lauds these "ultra nationalists" as "the best fighters" that Ukraine simply needs, is even more outrageous.

The rights of Russian speaking minorities that, fact of the matter is, Ukraine started oppressing in total contradiction to the West's "values and policies" about minority rights, is also simply an entirely justified grievance, which is text-book prejudice due to ethnicity and language that the West claims to be against.

There have been war crimes also by the Ukrainians, but generally in a peaceful resolution to a war, all the war crimes are ignored. As with any settlement, one of the main benefits is not admitting any wrongdoing.

We had trials against the Third Reich ... because we won. There was no trials of Western war crimes even if they were of comparable or worse nature than some convicted Nazi's.

Benefits of winning is also likewise not needing to admit any wrong doing — “boethius

.



Here you are no longer delving into hypothetical thoughts, you clearly state as a matter of fact “war is totally provoked”, “these are definitely Nazi institutions with enormous power and influence in Ukraine”, “The rights of Russian speaking minorities that, fact of the matter is, Ukraine started oppressing”, “There have been war crimes also by the Ukrainians”. And you count them as “legitimate grievance”. Besides since you talk about “entirely justified grievance” and “in total contradiction to the West's ‘values and policies’” (unquestionable proof of Western hypocrisy right?), the gap between “legitimate grievance” and “justified grievance” seems now bridged by the reference to Western shared rules. You look pretty convinced about all this.

I would disagree on matter of facts and legitimacy/justification (as I pointed out in the previous comments). But I’m not surprised to hear them. Such alleged “legitimate grievances” are perfectly in line with a propaganda technique called “accusation in a mirror” where Russia is accusing the West/NATO/US/Ukraine of violations Russia itself is arguably committing in a more significant and more documented way than Russia can ever prove against the West, no matter how much grains of truth there are in Russian accusations. Indeed, an ex-KGB agent ascended to presidency and established a more authoritarian and personalist regime like Putin, may well rely on all kinds of psychological warfare and disinformatia practiced during the cold war, multiplied by the channels made available by the current technologies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood), right?
Besides your loose notion of “legitimate grievance” enables any non-controversial grain of truth in Russian propaganda against the West or Ukraine to ascend to the status of “legitimate grievance” despite the fact that other relevant contextual considerations may severely undermine their status of “legitimate grievance” as I understand this notion.
Anyway I’m gonna add a few more thoughts on such “legitimate grievance”:
Concerning NATO expansion, if the issue is “the actual military threats are hardware and personnel, not the actual NATO treaty” then the issue is not NATO expansion but NATO offensive military capacity from Ukraine and American bases. While I understand that might constitute a future security threat to some extent because a country like Russia with the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world plus more discretionary military doctrine as deterrence and offensive apparatus in case of existential threat can be hardly seen as a vulnerable state and liable to NATO aggressive attacks (and “any NATO member would evaluate things militarily exactly the same” as I said), this could have been handled differently especially in a time where: A) NATO was at its low in terms of popularity given the isolationist trends in the US (president Trump being in line with such trends) and the greater focus on China, the opposition of France and Germany to NATO expansion in Ukraine and to increase military budget, and NATO unpopularity among interested parties (Ukrainians didn’t want to join NATO until Crimean annexation, Finns and Swedes didn’t want to join NATO until the beginning of this war by Russia). B) If West/NATO/US was hostile to Russia as the US was against the Soviet Union globalisation to the point of ensuring Western stable dependency on Russian money and resources (enabling Russian blackmailing strategy during this war), wouldn’t have been possible. C) The issue of offensive military capacity could have been handled diplomatically the way the Cuban missile crisis was, or even better by Russia giving costly security guarantees to all Eastern European countries (including Ukraine) that were tempted to join NATO. But it wasn’t, because it’s not matter of NATO offensive military capacity, to Putin (and the military-economic-intellectual elites he surrounded himself with) it was all about hegemonic status and capacity of ideological, political and military projection outside Russian boarders on the world stage like the US and China. In other words, Russian “legitimate grievance” about NATO expansion and “justification” for their atrocities against their brother Ukrainians is all about hegemonic status and what goes with it (“territory and national pride” as you would say).
Notice that the concept of “provocation” would have no justificatory power if we didn’t reason in terms of agency (so responsibility) and shared rules (like we do with law & moral). If “provocation” has merely causal explanatory power (like stimulus and reflex response), then the US too and Ukraine too responded to the threatening stimulus (actual, future or imaginary as you wish) constituted by Russia. In other words, all geopolitical agents are de facto security maximiser systems that respond to perceived threats by reflex: Russia perceives threats from the West and it reacts accordingly, the West perceives threats from Russia and it reacts accordingly, whatever the consequences are for anybody involved, period! And you can navigate up-stream the causal chain of actions and reactions back to human prehistory in search for who was the first one to begin (maybe God?), so good luck with that! Anyway, in that case, “legitimacy” is void of any justificatory meaning, and “legitimate grievance” equates to “perceived threat to counter” and “provocation” is whatever the “provoked” recipient perceives as such: Hitler’s extermination of Jews was a response to a legitimate grievance, Soviet Union’s genocide of Ukrainians was a response to a legitimate grievance, all terrorist attacks (including decapitation videos) committed by jihadists were a response to legitimate grievance, the US war against Iraq and Afghanistan were a response to a legitimate grievance (including all American lies and propaganda). Even if Russia launched a strategic nuclear bomb to Kiev on the 24 February, that would still be a response to a legitimate grievance.
On the other side if “provocation” has justificatory meaning what are the shared moral/legal/contractual rules and the agency that would grant such meaning to “provocation”? In international relations the shared rules are the ones provided by international law centered around the notion of “sovereignty” (and related right to self-defence) and NATO expansion didn’t breach international law rules nor security treaties or even official agreements with Russia (BTW, United States could also withdraw from JCPOA, thanks to Putin’s “outstanding” and “talented” orange-faced girlfriend, remember that?). While Russia manifestly breached Ukrainian sovereignty by aggressing Ukraine and annexing Ukrainian territories without even having the pretexts US exploited in occupying (but not annexing pieces of) Iraq and Afghanistan for a regime change like WMD (by an authoritarian and expansionist regime) and sponsoring terroristic attacks overseas (by an Islamist regime). In other words, respecting Russian hegemonic status and sphere of influence outside its boarders (Ukraine included) is shared rule neither within western moral standards nor within international laws. From a geopolitical point of view, the hegemonic status can clearly be the object of contention between competing great powers and result from certain power dynamics depending on available means and effective strategic usage of such available means. But, in this domain, the political (if not moral) imperative is that each sovereign state should prioritise its national security over others. So NATO “provocations” (expansion and support to Ukraine) may be effective moves (despite Mearsheimer’s theories and diagnosis) by the Western powers if they disrupt Russian projection power, and therefore they would be strategically justified (which is different but not incompatible with saying that they are morally or legally justified).
In any case, Russian craving for hegemonic status is neither a moral nor a legal/contractual obligation/commitment to other states, so violating Russian expectations based on its understanding of its power relations with the West constitutes - pace Mearsheimer - no legitimate grievance. Just sheer self-entitled imposition against the West/NATO/US, with no Western-acknowledgeable “justification”. Otherwise it wouldn’t be the end of the West-led World Order. And since the legal/moral notion of “legitimacy” is also important to settle issues like justice and reparation (for Ukrainian killed, deported people, other war crimes, etc. and all other material damages in Ukraine), talking about “legitimate grievance” is ultimately a demand for impunity.

Concerning Ukrainian neo-nazi extremists and war crimes, even if we ignore the fog of lies that Russians spread around these subjects, there are certainly facts that Western governments don’t need to overlook, because Ukraine is not part of the EU/NATO yet, so investigation/policies against far-right extremism and war crimes (like with corruption) may be required for Ukraine to join the West. Currently, however, the assessment of such facts can be deeply biased by pro-Russian propaganda. Indeed, Russia has a much bigger problem with war crimes and far-right extremists than Ukraine (https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/if-russia-serious-about-de-nazification-it-should-start-home). Not to mention that Russia (especially under Putin) is a notoriously active promoter of far-right and neonazi movements in the West. So, frankly speaking, Putin does not have a problem with Ukrainian neonazi because they are neonazi, but because they are anti-Russian (which feeling now is more widely and intensely felt in Ukraine thanks to Putin’s special military operation)! In other words, talking about “denazification of Ukraine” is just a rhetoric trope that can be more conveniently exploited by Russian propaganda for domestic and Western audience (however different the historical memories about the Nazi period may be) instead of “Russification of Ukraine”.
So whatever issue Ukraine has with far-right extremism and nenonazi, that can not be used by Russia in defending its international rights or to support its demands given all that the West can justifiably retort against Russia. What’s worst is that given Putin’s authoritarian regime and long reign, responsibilities concerning both accusations (wrt far-right extremism and war crimes) can be more easily pinned on Putin than on Zelensky.

All I can agree with is that for several reasons the grievance about Crimea and Russian minorities in Donbas were more amenable to international law solutions (even more balanced between Russia and Ukraine) and therefore more easy to legitimise. For the same reasons, I wouldn’t be surprised if, at the negotiation table, the Westerners would still be more open on those points than the Ukrainians, despite the annexations. Yet there are also non-negligible economic reasons why neither Ukraine nor the West will concede those regions that easily for good reasons: with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia extorted related Black Sea shelf reserves of oil and gas owned by Ukraine, so preventing Ukraine from becoming a potential energetic competitor that the West is interested to integrate (https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2014/05/27/the-energy-dimensions-of-russias-annexation-of-crimea/index.html).

Finally what kind of legitimate grievances against the Russians (notice how the negotiation requirements are framed around pro- and cons- for Russia, because they are the ones really need convincing not the West or the Ukrainians) is Russia required to recognize as a first step? — neomac


Yes, the negotiation from our Western perspective is mainly around the pros-and-cons for Russia, since it's them that we are negotiating with.

The first step in negotiating a settlement is coming up with a compromise of the key issues that you think is acceptable to the other party, the "deal breakers". There can be a long list of minor stuff, in this case economic arrangements of how to rebuild Ukraine or then dropping sanctions and so on, but there's no point in addressing secondary issues if there's no possible compromise on the deal breakers.

The deal breakers in this war for the Russians are concerning NATO and Crimea. There maybe someway to negotiate the other big issues, such as Russian speaking rights in Donbas and so, in a way that de-annexes these territories (such as the proposed referendums to be part of Ukraine, autonomous in Ukraine or independent) or then simply recognises the annexation (such as another referendum to join Russia that the international community recognises).

There is, for certain, no compromise Ukrainians and Westerners would be happy about, but the alternative is more war, more death, and potentially Ukraine losing anyways, which people will just blame Ukraine for not "fighting hard enough" but people should be far more unhappy about compared to a compromise now or at any point previous in the war.

Which is why the issue of the cost to Ukraine of more fighting is simply ignored in Western media, and even in this forum: so that if Ukraine comes out a big loser in all this, well that's what they wanted, what are you gonna do, all we did was give some of the weapons that they wanted, as any friend would do. — “boethius

To me other notions to clarify are those of “victory” and “loss”. They may have a meaning on the battlefield, and another in political and strategic terms, especially in the long run. Even if Ukraine manages to reintegrate all the occupied areas except Crimea and Donbas, this may count as a military loss for Ukraine and a military victory for Russia. But it could arguably count as a more significant political loss for Russia than for Ukraine, since the political price of this “special military operation” could still be too high for Russia to bear. Indeed, Russia wouldn’t make any substantial progress since 2014 wrt its ambitious objectives yet it would end up in much worse conditions: no regime change and no denazification (even the “neonazi" Azov fighters are being returned to Ukraine in prisoner exchanges), so the security threat would still be there if Ukraine joins NATO or gets security guarantees from the West, the military/intelligence failures looked of epic proportion, Russian political reputation among allies is sinking (CSTO alliance is not faring well, Russian annexations were acknowledged only by one of its members, Khazakstan is flirting with China), NATO will likely expand, sanctions are hampering Russian economy and technological upgrade (which is also essential for Russian military capacity), the American archenemy’s influence in Europe is getting stronger while Russian energetic integration with Europe is being severed, and Russian closer partnership with China (which will not replace the economic partnership with Europe in the short period) doesn’t look as a boost in hegemonic leadership, but a self-demotion in geopolitical rank and influence (Central Asia may definitely drift under the Chinese sphere of influence). And that is the opposite of the status recognition that Russia was striving for. From history, we know that Russian humiliating defeats have political repercussions and can lead to regime change/reforms. And this, in turn, could have unexpected favorable repercussions also on the Ukrainian territorial claims over Donbas and Crimea in the longer run.
Anyhow such geopolitical victory doesn’t depend just on Russian means, resolution, or escalation threats, but also on Western cohesion, resolution and vision in addressing the Russian security and economic challenge. This will also be an example also for other authoritarian regimes, like China. And an important premise to repair or rebuild more convenient relationships between the West and the Rest in the interest of everybody.

To recapitulate your intellectual failures so far: — neomac


emotional blackmailing, — neomac


That you perceive my pointing out the cost of your "endgame" for NATO, who you support, as emotional blackmail, is just demonstrating your cognitive dissonance about your own position.

Harming Russia by arming the Ukrainian army, comes at to Ukrainian welfare, and if harming Russia is the goal the cost to Ukraine could be far in excess of what would be in Ukrainian-self-interest (with or without us deceiving them about it, we would still be responsible for the outcome).

If you want to support harming the Russians, and not just a little bit but until they are no longer a threat to the West, then this requires a commensurate cost to the Ukrainians, a "moral dilemma" in your own words. Pointing out the cost is just reality, not "blackmail", and your perception that the reality is blackmail, is delusional.

slippery slopes, strawmans — neomac


What slippery slope, what straw man? You can't be more clear what your position actually is, and then you double down on it to be even more clear:

Sure, here I restate it again and bolden it: The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. Outrageous right?! — neomac


It's not outrageous, it's exactly what US / NATO are trying to do, and they are pretty clear about it.

Lot's of geopolitical "moves" require the sacrifice of some country or people's wellbeing for the "greater good". Talk to the Vietnamese, talk the Kurds, talk to our liberal "friends" in Iraq and Afghanistan, talk to the Libyans and Syrians (again, our "friends" there, not to mention just average person there trying to get by).

And, indeed, it is typical of any war that it is waged on land and among civilians that do not benefit from the outcome, either way, especially if their dead. Sacrificing here or there, this person or that, for the polities benefit and not their own, is an entirely normal process in any war.

The reason it's controversial in this war is because we're not even fighting it, Ukraine may lose anyways and even if they have some sort of "win" it may easily be at an unreasonably high cost. If it was all just to virtue signal without any coherent workable plan to actually "beat" Russia, then this Western attitude (of which the policy of the leadership entirely depends) has caused immense suffering for nothing.

You support the policy, the cost to Ukraine is immense, face the reality and explain how it's worth it so far, how the same or multiple times more cost would be likewise worth it, or even the entire destruction of Ukraine would be worth it if Russia is harmed enough.

For months the cost to Ukraine was simply denied, casualties super low, easily winning, Russian army incompetent and will collapse any day etc. so everyone in the West could just ignore the "moral dilemma" of what this policy is costing Ukraine.

Now that the "bill is coming due" people in the West want to just ignore it and if they see it a little bit: Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine chose this path!!

The truth of the situation is simply that nuclear blackmail works. The situation would need to be nearly inconceivably more extreme than what is happening in Ukraine for it not to be reasonable to submit to nuclear blackmail.

And, because nuclear blackmail works, US / NATO policy is not to "escalate" beyond a certain point: that point being Russia actually losing the war. — boethius

Here the problems I see:
First, you seem asking me to solve an equation whose form and variables are unknown. What does “lose” for Ukraine mean in quantifiable terms? What’s the likelihood of loss and win and how did you calculate it? What’s the time range you are considering? What’s the cost threshold that if exceeded will make the cost unreasonably high? What quantifiable parameters would make you consider a Western plan a “‘coherent workable’ plan to actually ‘beat’ Russia”?
Second, you yourself do not have provided any positive example of what such equation would look like in this or any other war in human history to show at least what you expect others to provide. You just hinted at cases (“Talk to the Vietnamese, talk the Kurds, talk to our liberal "friends" in Iraq and Afghanistan, talk to the Libyans and Syrians”) as examples of Western failures, suggesting an unscrutinised analogy with the Ukrainian case. So you yourself are not using the equation AT ALL to assess if Western attitude deserves to be supported or not in the Ukrainian case. Why don’t we try something different? You support Russian “legitimate grievances” that motivate Russian “special military operation”, the cost to Ukraine is immense, face the reality and explain how it's worth it so far, how the same or multiple times more cost would be likewise worth it, or even the entire destruction of Ukraine would be worth it, if Russian “legitimate grievances” enough acknowledged and demands are enough met. What would be an “unreasonably high cost” for Russia to have some sort of “win”?
Third, since your arguments against the Western attitude are in terms of number of casualties, defamatory/dismissive claims about Western (e.g. encouraging the Ukrainians to fight even though they know the Ukrainians will lose anyways or will completely destroyed, not fighting directly) and Ukrainian (e.g.“territory and national pride”) intentions/motivations, while acknowledging Russian “legitimate grievances” and unstoppable resolution (starting with the “nuclear blackmail”), arguing against such anti-Western policy arguments as I did in my exchanges with you and others is all there is to do on my side. Indeed, I’m very suspicious about your “accounting approach” because as far as I know, nobody and certainly not avg dudes like me and you can figure out a reliable plan to grant an optimal military victory and international security/economic/political fallout for this war as for any war in the entire human history (in the hindsight everything would likely appear to us questionable and suboptimal for one reason or another e.g. were the nuclear bombs over Japan really necessary? ). Strategic decisions by political administrations are constrained by all sorts of unpredictable/volatile factors. Political administrations have to creatively work their strategy out based on educated heuristics (guided by teams of experts), educated understanding of other relevant peers’ available options and preferences (so any move must be assess wrt other players’ available strategies, allies and enemies included) and longer terms goals (e.g. stretching over decades). So one way warring governments can topple one another is by overloading decision capacity with many pressing decision conditions at any level (e.g. economic, political, military) which will in turn increase the risk of committing fatal/cascading/cumulative mistakes to the advantage of the opponent. And notice that, given the Western support, the Ukrainian administration can rely on a likely wider and more effective pool of advisors and intelligence than the Russians. I also deeply doubt that at any given time the most valuable information available to decision makers (including how the strategy is performing so far) is available for public consumption by avg dudes like us for obvious security reasons. So avg dudes’ reasoning is twice frustrating because the avg dudes’ bounded rationality adds up to the bounded rationality of decision makers. And your peace deal recommendations suffer from such cognitive limits: the number of casualties doesn't literally say anything about what the best strategy in the long run is.
Besides I doubt that lives (as a biological condition) and well-being (as quantifiable material prosperity) are the unique or most politically relevant units by which one should measure costs and benefits of the war. Indeed the existential motivation behind major involved players in this conflict (like Ukraine, Russia, and the West) is more about shared/identitarian understanding, acknowledgement and possible achievement of what makes life worth living, so recognition (of self-determination for Ukrainians, and hegemonic status for Russia and the West). And this motivation can go deep into blood and bones of an entire society when people with their network of family, friendly, emotional and generational ties experience discrimination, humiliation, persecution, coercion, injury, rapes, torture, kill, threats, destruction and deprivation of their material and psychological means of subsistence or sense of safety because they hold a certain national identity instead of another. So Ukraine will likely keep fighting against the Russian aggression as a cancer which requires a hard, almost intolerable, treatment at least until it becomes intolerable.
Concerning the West, if Russia like a terrorist Islamist State (after all the religious pro-war propaganda against the satanist West is strong in Russia too) has proven means and will to wreck people and countries partnering with the West, destabilise Western economy (commodity blackmailing), politics (by supporting far-right movements in the West and soliciting the Rest to ally with Russia against the West), security (nuclear threats) in pursuit of such recognition the West can’t possibly let this happen without losing its own existential struggle for recognition. In other words, the West can’t possibly back up AGAINST powerful and aggressive authoritarian regimes that strive for recognition in OPPOSITION and at the expense of the West. So, since the clash of irreconcilable world views and (moral/legal/political) order is the deepest reason of this war, it’s irrational to now admit as possible the acknowledgment of Russian “legitimate grievances” just to avoid further bloodshed. For both “legitimate grievances” AND war bloodshed’s meaning ALONG WITH the value of the lives that have been already sacrificed to this war and the value of the lives that might be again sacrificed if Russia (or its emulators) were still in condition to start another war, threat or oppress sovereign countries and partners of the West still DEPENDS ON that clash of irreconcilable world views.
Four, I’m suspicious about causal claims such as “Western attitude (of which the policy of the leadership entirely depends) has caused immense suffering”, because they are ambiguously suggesting implicit and unscrutinised responsibility claims. Indeed the Western attitude is just one indirect causal factor of this War, among more direct causal factors which depend on Russian and Ukrainian attitude. My assumption is that for assessing responsibility, causal claims are not enough, one needs to assess agency and decision making process, along with beliefs and intentions against shared standards.