Ah, sir, this conversation is getting tiring and I have a lot of things to do. Again, the usual one-sided moral argument about Western freedom values and Russophobia. Let me dispell some of your illusions.

First of all, about your freedom of speech:

This is a web page from human rights watch (a western NGO), where activists were declared as national security threats and counter-terrorist tactics were used against them. Note that two of these documented cases happened in the US, France and in Poland.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/29/targeting-environmental-activists-counterterrorism-measures-abuse-law

Also the case of CIA blacksites in EU countries, which detain people without a trial or any public accusation, if they are declared national security threats: https://www.dw.com/en/lithuania-romania-aided-cia-torture-by-hosting-secret-detention-sites-court-rules/a-44020215

We also have the classic case of wikileaks and thousands of classified documents leaked exposing details of operations of US and NATO bases, US espionage of governments around the world, but after all sentimental blabber in the press, the conclusion was to simply imprison the whistleblowers and collaborators:

https://apnews.com/article/julian-assange-wikileaks-extradition-timeline-cc6519ac54d85e6d22aa1f6774b2428f

Snowden also had to take refuge in Russia, because no Western country was safe for him.

We also have the recent case of Palestine Action classified as a terrorist organization:

https://theconversation.com/palestine-action-arrests-what-happens-next-and-what-it-tells-us-about-the-breadth-of-britains-counter-terrorism-laws-263080

So, the conclusion we take is that Freedom of speech is really beautiful as an idea and as a metaphysical principle, but states are ultimately defined by the interests of their ruling class, not on abstract principles. Even in your fabulous Western empire where freedom of speech is held as a value, you can speak freely as long as you don’t threat the system. If you do, you may be declared a terrorist, a national security threat, or any law or precedent that is applicable to you will fit in your case and all your guaranteed rights become void in the moment after. I fear for the tortured people in the CIA blacksites in EU because in many cases not even their names might have been known, and the person simply disappeared, with no trial, no hearing, nothing.

And I don’t want to say Russia is a grandiose haven, it is not. It is a bourgeois state with their own class interests nonetheless, and have the same flaws, and it is many times more extreme because it is under pressure. The US right now is also under pressure, therefore we have Trump’s gestapo on the streets capturing people left and right. Don’t be surprised if crisis hit Europe hard and your constitutional guarantees slip down to the toilet.

Peace is also like a long stick that don’t strike. But if that is the case, I need to add that EU’s stick hits, hits hard, and hits frequently. You need to study the history of colonialism in Africa, in Asia, in the Americas, the Vietnam’s war, all the national liberation struggles in Africa and Asia post-WW2, such as the Algerian liberation struggle, the assassination of Patrick Lumumba, the assassination of Thomas Sankara, the multiple recent assassination attempts against Traore’s life, the Afghanistan war, the invasion of Libya, the Iraq war, the Syrian war, the war against Ansar Allah, the war against Iran, and the war against Ukraine. You also need to study about Operation Condor and its effects on Latin American countries including thousands of people who were detained and tortured, all this in collaboration with the US and the EU. EU’s and NATO’s tentacles are simply everywhere. If we delve deeper into European colonialism and imperialism, including colonialism from liberal countries, what Nazis did to Jews and other minorities in Europe will look like child’s play. Alas, Western colonialism was the great inspiration for Nazi’s Holocaust.

But let’s return for the crux of the argument. What material evidence do you have that Russia is advancing towards EU and not the other way around? I’m still waiting for your response. Let’s try to answer this time without diverting to moral relativism?

I hear you and heed your concerns. Pretty much any discussion on this topic I’ve had in this community came down to a bunch of basic disagreements over what constituted legitimate (by the people for the people; grass root; organic) and illegitimate revolutions (sponsored; coup). Basically, I end up bringing up a few peoples with a right to self-determination that the other side doesn’t want to hear about and vice versa.

The problem is that you are doing a moral argument, which is inherently flawed as it is centered as this moral you are showing is just justification for the current Western-led world order. You also don’t take into account the material circumstances, the classes involved, the interest groups involved etc. First of all, what is “legitimate” or “illegitimate”? Every revolution/counter will have sponsors, be them a government or an organization. And yes, any resistance/paramilitary group needs weapons and financing, so it is not a surprise if Donbas separatist groups would ask help from Russia or if Ukrainian nationalists would seek help from UE, which is antagonizing Russia. “Legitimate” is often a buzzword that the press use when it wants to praise a revolution or “illegitimate” when it wants to condemn it. Every revolution or counter-revolution will have popular support of some degree, as it is not a surprise that Donbas separatists are more pro-Russia and Russian-speaking while Ukrainian nationalists are pro-EU. Moral arguments will often pick one side by saying the other is evil or vice-versa. And every revolution/counter-revolution will rely on a coup or a power grab that changes the status quo and drops the current legality. For example, when Chavez changed the constitution he had massive support of the working and peasant class, while the a good part of the Venezuelan urban middle-class, capitalists and land-owners were against him. Which side is more “legitimate”, the side that wants to preserve the status quo or the one who wants to change it? Note that any moral argument will simply pick a side and make the other one “illegitimate” or “evil”. However, we can quickly point out the interests involved. The EU (which is not even democratic in its constitution) seeks to integrate Ukraine and expand its zone of influence, maintain control over Ukrainian resources, and invest capital in Ukraine, to profit from wheat and rare earths. Russia wants to maintain its current factories in Eastern Ukraine, as well as its military apparatus in Crimea, and it is not a surprise that many separatists used to work on those factories and feared that their jobs would be taken just like it happened in Eastern Germany.

I haven’t yet found a satisfying solution other than reverting back to the post WW2 international order and the UN, which is itself deeply flawed (e.g., veto powers, small security council).

The UN’s job is to maintain the status quo, which is a hegemony centered around the US block. It gives some diplomatic avenues to smaller countries, but its architecture exists to favor Western interests first and foremost. And by Western, I mean Western capitalists.

To name one basic fact, few places have as much freedom of the press by law as the West. It feels deeply disturbing to me when a government is so afraid of its own people, who should be the sovereign, that it limits what they can and cannot say and hear.

Freedom of press is the biggest illusion propagated by liberals. Freedom of press just opens the avenue for capitalists to buy out most of the existing media, or to influence the media by providing the revenue to control said media. And when capital is in control, it does not surprise me that the newspaper editorial line and its main columnists will be pro-capital, pro-globalism. And the West is just cynical about “freedom of speech” of its own citizens. Given that you maintain the status quo, you can criticize the current bourgeois party as long as the next bourgeois party is elected in its place. But start talking about unionizing, or going against imperialist foreign policy like being a spoken-out pro-Palestine and you will may end up in a blacklist that will make your life hell to get another job or to live decently after that. You aren’t more free in the West as you are in any other place of the planet, you are just being fooled into defending the status quo.

After you spend so much time talking to liberals (and being a liberal myself for much of the time of my life) you start understanding their language, and a fundamental part of it is basically moral relativism. So when billionaires dominates many concessions for broadcasting on TV, radio and the internet, making a monopoly over the mass information transmitted, detaining the lion share of the ad revenue, which is by they way funded by other capitalist conglomerates, then this becomes freedom of expression. If a popular government decides to cease the access of this monopoly and create a state funded communication enterprise, then this is authoritarian. If some group fights in a country for independence in a way that aligns with Western interests, then this group are rebels or freedom fighters; but if another group fights on the other side, against Western interests, then it’s a terrorist organization. If a political party is backed by EU with lots of funding to manipulate the public opinion and steer people towards EU’s interests, then it’s a democratic party that represents the will of the people; but then if the same thing happens with Russian support, then they are Russian pawns or agents. If people do a referendum or an election that supports EU interests than they are free and fair elections, while at the same time elections or referendums that support a pro-Russian or an anti-Western policy, then it’s fraud, all NGO observers of elections raise their concerns, elections might be rigged and so on.

Therefore, your whole point basically relies on this moral relativism. So it takes the agency of the NATO’s most influent members out of the way, so the countries that decided to join it did that by their own free will. Of course having politicians being offered deals, bribes, capital and positions in the Western empire had nothing to do with the decision of those countries. But if Yanukovych was being offered the same to withdraw from the EU agreements and keep bilateral agreements with Russia, then he was a Russian agent and a puppet. It doesn’t matter if there was a referendum in Crimea where the population decided to join the Russian federation, because that referendum was rigged. Separatists in Donbas are also Russian agents and disguised Russian military troops, despite Ukraine having many military officers from NATO offering support and intelligence, no, that is a legitimate concern and support that the West was giving to Ukraine, it had absolutely nothing to do with their material interests.

So this is why liberals can’t be confronted with simple facts, one which is, there have been deliberate advances from EU and NATO towards Russia, and they were supporting some rebelions here and there, extending millitary alliances and economic dependence here and there. But no, this is not to be considered, because liberals are all moralists but their morals are more often than not one-sided.

Sorry, but Russia was not in any way creeping towards Europe, but the other way around. First of all, since the dissolution of the USSR (which was also provoked by a coup with the help of Western powers), the West backed materially many separatist groups in the Eastern block and since the Russian federation was in disarray after the fall of the USSR, specially due to the liberal shock therapy that created the current Russian bourgeoisie, a lot of Eastern European countries started joining the EU zone of influence, one after the other. Then there was the Russo-Georgian war in 2008, 5 years after NATO countries started approaching Georgia to join their block. There was also two separatist wars in Chechnya, once again backed by the NATO countries, the last one which ended on 2009.

Then there’s also NATO expansion, which included Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic in 1999, then Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria Estonia in 2004, then Croatia and Albania in 2009, Montenegro in 2017 and finally Finland and Sweden in 2023 and 2024, respectively. From 2004 to 2013, many of those countries (which were part of the old USSR and Yugoslavia) also joined the EU and adopted the Euro currency, fiscal policies and a neo-liberal agenda that included a big financialization of these economies, dependence of the Western European industrial powers and no barriers for Western European manufactures. With a few exceptions, most of the workers of these countries saw a worsening of their material conditions and we saw Western capital taking hold of most of the market.

And then we have the conflict in Ukraine, which did not start in 2014, but it was a development of multiple disputes between EU-backed politicians against Russian-backed ones. The orange revolution in 2004 was a dispute between Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych, the former pro-EU and the later pro-Russia, the later also winning the elections. After many fraud allegations made by NGOs from… Western Europe and the US, many backed pro-EU groups started calling for protests who then called for new elections. Yuschenko won and Yanukovych conceded defeat. Then again, on 2010, Yanukovych won the elections and called back from the EU integration process trying to get closer ties with Russia. Again, EU took advantage of bad material conditions in Ukraine and backed another color revolution against the pro-Russia president, which was then ousted, and this prompted a response from Russia who took Crimea, which was at the time, immensely pro-Russia. And then we had the beginning of the military tensions between (EU-backed) Ukraine against Russia.

So, in summary, we saw EU and NATO extending their influence in direction of Russia for two decades, backing many separatist groups, which then became integrated to the pro-NATO sphere of influence. So, even disagreeing current Russia capitalist turn, there’s material evidence of expansion of EU and NATO towards Russia, which you cannot find in the other way around.

This is nothing but a narrative. Countries don’t start wars with superpowers based on small rebel skirmishes. They prepared from the beginning to start a war with Russia. They wouldn’t send CIA agents, military officers and wouldn’t train Ukrainian soldiers with NATO weapons, as well as deliberately back down from peace agreements if their intent was to achieve peace.

Likewise, Ukraine kept shelling rebels in Donbass as well as making use of Neo-nazi paramilitary battalions to suppress the rebels, such as the Azov Battalion. But Russia did not enter in the war based on this alone. Their intelligence saw that situation in Ukraine was escalating towards a war.

I felt so dumb after discovering about the sabotage of the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements, the Istambul agreement, as well as the EU involvement in financing pro-EU Ukrainian presidents, far right militias and their probable participation in the Maidan uprising. So, the conflict with Russia was engineered by the EU and the US and Russia warned them there would be a response. This radicalized me a lot and after this I couldn’t trust in a single word from a Western newspaper.

Everytime the West tries to paint a conflict as moral struggle against dictatorship, totalitarianism, terrorism or any other BS reason, it’s because it has ulterior material economic or political motives that it’s trying to hide.

Thank you Yogthos to explain in simple words the real motives behind this damned war.