Well, they know what they are doing - they came to Ukraine armed to kill Ukrainians. And they have killed many thousands, including civilians. If they are not stopped, they will kill and enslave more, serving their empire to grab new lands.
Their country is not invaded - they know their goal is to expand the Lebensraum for the Russian race - in their terms, "Russkij mir".
Shhh... Don't tell anyone that's how Ukrainians rule the world.
''... I fully expected this kind of knee-jerk reactionary given the community ...'' And you are talking about smugness ;-) Really, people mostly blame others for their own shortcomings and project them onto others. Talk about hipocrisy :-)
I understand your annoyance. Sorry if I was too blunt. Somehow I can freely read those articles - perhaps because I rarely read The Daily Beast.
I won't stop it. The Daily Beast is readable for most people. If you have a problem with it, you can just block me. I'll be only glad if you do so.
It's Russian Christmas, which is later in the year. Most Orthodox Christian countries, including Ukraine, celebrate it earlier, on the same day as the US.
Well, Ukraine is becoming noticeably more united, self-aware and competent. And this is so much better than the previous Russian genocide, when many millions of Ukrainians starved to death and almost no one abroad even knew about it.
The puppetry is mostly a Russian template: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppet_state So that's what the Russians often say in their projections.
The U.S. relationship with its various allies is much more nuanced, and it takes some knowledge of modern international relations to understand it. Suffice it to say that, based on its model of relations, the US is not interested in simplistic political patronage. It's interested in markets and free world trade.
Thank you for your compassion. The sanctions are working, even if less than expected. I am writing this in safety thanks to Western support. Now it's Pootin's allies in the West who are circumventing the sanctions and strangling the support.
Yes, "to put paid to (something)" is a rather rare British English idiom, and I also had to look it up. Basically, it means "to stop something from happening or spoil plans for something".
There are many cats kept in the Ukrainian dugouts. However, it seems that mice have incredibly proliferated by feeding on the Ruscist corpses left out in the open. Cats are physically unable to consume them all at once.
They carry and aim their weapons with full knowledge of what they are doing - invading the neighboring country, killing those who resist and enslaving others. It's been one of the most popular Russian sports for many centuries. That's how Russia became so big. They know the rules of the game very well - it's deeply ingrained in Russian culture, which has never been anything but imperial. They are obedient slaves of the empire.
They have been conditioned since childhood to blindly submit to authority. Their ignorance doesn't absolve them of war crimes. I would prefer that they stay alive, but sometimes murderers must be stopped by violent means.
The age of the violent empires is finally coming to an end.