On April 17, 2023, the Moscow City Court convicted Vladimir Kara-Murza on combined charges of treason, dissemination of “false information” about the conduct of the Russian Armed Forces, and involvement with an “undesirable organization”, and sentenced him to 25 years in maximum security prison with an additional fine of 400,000 rubles (approximately USD 5,000), restriction of freedom for 1.5 years, and a ban on journalistic activities for 7 years.
NATO will act according to their interests. If they can defeat an enemy, they will do so. If your point is that the US will simply point all its weapons towards Russia and China and then simply smile and let them peacefully develop to overtake the US in every aspect as they are doing, you’re wrong.
Russia did. But I don’t think they should just sit back and watch as the US prepares to deal a lethal blow to them. The US has set up bases all around Russia, formed military alliances with countries near its border. The US has also promoted coups in many post-Soviet states to make their governments US-affine. Even after the 2014 pro-US coup in Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens voted for the seemingly pro-Russian Zelensky, who had promised to normalize relations with Russia and embrace the Russian culture and language in the Donbas region, and were fooled by what turned out to be a new US puppet regime and continued war against the Donbas. Even US officials admit they were planning for the war, just that they didn’t think Russia would strike first. At this point, who even launched the first missile in this particular development of the 2014 war is just a small technicality in a complex hybrid war that’s been developing for years.
If two authoritarian behemoths are fighting to death as they are, randomly biting and scolding both in hopes that they’ll magically become democratic is a stupid strategy. At best, you will achieve nothing. At worst, one of them will weaponize your innocence against the other, which is quite the case.
No one wants to defeat or have war with Russia (nor China or any country). That wouldn’t make sense. NATO could have entered the war in Ukraine at any time (with the “excuse” of Russia did “strike first” as you said), but it didn’t, because this war -like any war- doesn’t make sense.
Fair. But didn’t Finland recently and all other countries before join Nato voluntarily? Why so?
If we do what the people want -in Russia, Ukraine, and everywhere else- then we would “magically become democratic”. I argue that no soldier in the battlefields wants to be a soldier, and those who want the war are not in the battlefields. But in non-democratic societies, people don’t make the decisions (and, yes, no democracy is perfect, there’s is a lot do and the work may never end).