whYNOT

For the "Russian Empire!" skeptics, the full Bennett interview reveals how much Putin was ready to concede for a resolution.
Here:
https://youtu.be/ZpCTEBaTFS8
"Bucha" was a most convenient event, coming very soon after and during those negotiations about negotiations.  Too convenient. There were certainly factions who wanted to go ahead with war, domestic or foreign. What better than an Azov-committed, MI6-conceived false flag atrocity to raise outrage and promote conflict?
Even accepting Bucha's doubtful veracity, the collective West still had *zero* rights interfering in a peace deal, nor using Bucha as a weak excuse. These were cynical/immoral interventions which - any fool could predict - have eventuated in losing, not dozens, 100's of thousands of lives, and all the rest.
If the West was so concerned about Ukraine civilians (or future atrocities), all the more reason to back the potential peace accords.
And have avoided 'punishing' Russians by punishing Ukrainians.
Anyhow, they well know by now that Ukraine's atrocities far outnumber Russians, and covered up for them. An "atrocity" is when the enemy commits it, apparently.
This argument doesn't wash at any level.
Not to distract from the big takeaway -- Bennett reveals Putin/Zelensky were amenable to compromises to end the fighting in the first days of invasion. Especially Putin.
It -might- have stopped right then.
An interview I only find on a few back channels
Let's see if NYT and CNN cover that story...

From an essay by Bruce Fein about Robert Kagan.
(John Q Adam's vision, as pertinent as it is today. Absolutely--"the benignant sympathy of her example"--that is all we elsewhere need).
"Further, Kagan maintains, emancipating foreign nations from the Dark Ages is the optimal path to optimal democracy, liberty, and prosperity in the United States. He has no moment for Secretary of State John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address to Congress expounding the foreign policy of the United States contrary to Kagan’s gospel:
“Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.”
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force….
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit….”"
JQA

Within minutes, I predicted, up pops the western propaganda troll. To again distract, impede and obfuscate debate. Even to insist on posters' removal.
 
 
 

Chemical weapons
https://youtu.be/Wn9V41asoxs
 

Too bad for your kind. I have seen your methods, chum, trying to stifle or divert from new evidence and argument. Every time. Are you paid by someone to propagandize for warmongers on this forum? 

Within minutes, I predicted, up pops the western propaganda troll. To again distract, impede and obfuscate debate. Even to insist on posters' removal.
 
 
 

You are right, don't allow these rationalized objections throw you off. The article showing a large increase in shelling days before the invasion is officially true, known at the time by many outside the mainstream, and your moral take is just.
The Ukr-NATO psy-ops people, in preparation for the war they wanted, realized it's critical for Russia to throw the first blow, or be SEEN to do so. The unthinking public, obviously, must only know what it's told: the war started Feb 24. Nothing was going on before that, freeze your minds right there. "Unjustified and unprovoked" was a prepared response, justifying the prepared, instant sanctions on Russia.
They knew with certainty - they understood and exploited his values - that a mounting fresh assault on the Donbass would entice and motivate Putin to enter soon. (As I've argued, Putin would know the threats to the Russia-owned Crimea, the well-being of people in Crimea and Donbass, and naturally - to the security of Russia's adjacent borders.
Legally right or wrong, one can argue all day-- Putin was morally right.
Of course with Putin/Russians already viewed with contempt by longstanding indoctrination, all this was carefully orchestrated to nullify the Russian-Ukrainians and their plight (who had heard of the civil war, Minsk, etc., in the West before '22?), in order to not attract any sympathy for them.
Especially - for 'evil' Putin never to be publicly seen as greatly motivated by humanitarian impulses!
So the propagandist shills for the neocons came up with "Empire!" and the rest.
 

Chemical weapons
https://youtu.be/Wn9V41asoxs
 

One can't reason with someone who won't reason. Can you not deduce anything?
You have seen the evidence for:
A. The confessed deceitfulness of western participants in the Minsk accords - to gain time for the UAF to be strengthened.
B. the sabotage in 2022 by the Western powers of the Turkey-sponsored negotiations (between Ukraine and Russia).
C. the sabotage in 2022 by the Western powers of the Israel-sponsored negotiations, (etc).
and more that hasn't been made public so far.
Anyone who might think realizes by their acts that Kyiv and its Nato/EU backers were *planning* to get into a war - and nothing would stop them (self-evidently). Peace? No chance.
War against whom? I repeat, and it is irrefutable: against the Donbass and Crimea and inevitably, Russia, in their - and its own - defense.
If Putin had not interfered at that point, he would have HAD to, very soon afterwards. The inhabitants of Donbass and Crimea would have suffered the vicious punishment we know Kyiv and its neo-Nazi forces are capable of.
This before or after red herring I won't be bothered with proving - you deny and evade whatever you are presented.
Suffice to say, the US assisted Maidan coup and a new regime, was the beginning of the troubles that raised the very real threat to Russia of losing its only warm water naval base (and plainly why it annexed Crimea), and the civil war--and so on .

Excerpt:
"Russia refuses to accept a negotiated outcome that entails its retreat from the Donbas or Crimea. Moscow now insists that Ukraine accede to the suicidal Minsk II agreement that would effectively convert Ukraine into a confederation whose sovereignty could be punctured at any point by the Donbas, much as the confederacy attempted to destroy the Union in the American Civil War 150 years ago. Yet it remains the case that the real problem with the Misnk II accords is that Russia has never even bothered to hide its refusal to comply with it in any form. Thus its demands are without merit and a dodge to avoid compliance. At the heart of this crisis is the fact that Russia still cannot accept Ukraine’s de jure independence as a sovereign and separate state. In Moscow, power rests on the notion of an imperial state to whom all other members of the former Warsaw Pact must surrender part of their sovereignty".
I maintain "propaganda" on this article. A load of assertions creating a 'flipped narrative'. Perhaps and unsurprising not being mentioned much in the msm, but in the past year, ex-Ukraine President Poroshenko, the ex-Chancellor Merkel, and ex-President Hollande have each confirmed independently that their meetings at Minsk were never meant to bear fruit, "suicidal" for Ukraine - or life-saving for the Donbass.
They reiterated the same duplicitous purpose, Minsk in 2014/15 was "to buy time" to build the Ukraine Army for - obviously - wiping out the Donbass resistance - and its coming, anticipated encounter with the Russian Army.
As everyone should know, Zelensky was elected on the platform "peace in Donbass": he backed down to threats from his ultra-nationalists and continued the (civil) war with a vengeance. Not the only time, he again backed down to Johnson/Biden just before beginning negotiations with Russia in March that could have ended hostilities (by simply implementing "Minsk" and declaring Ukraine neutrality). He is a traitor to his country. He sacrificed his people to Western blandishments and promises of a glorious victory over Russia...
 

What could go wrong? So the collective west for years builds and supplies the Ukraine regime's military powers in order to beat (a legitimately defensive) Russia - a nuclear superpower, btw - and expects that Russia will just fade away at the first sign of resistance. But they haven't, instead are beating Ukraine at conventional warfare; so you send more armour and 'advisers' and consider sending F-16 fighters, next. What could possibly go wrong?
Barack Obama said it exactly in 2016: "Russia has escalatory dominance". I.e: In their particular location, they are more than able to meet and raise the stakes at anything thrown at them by foreign forces, and could probably defeat a Nato alliance Army. And then what? How does Nato respond to losing? Obama's caution forgotten by the tough-acting kids in charge of the kindergarten now. You may go to war with Russia if you wish, on the strength of 'noble principles', but do so at your country's, Ukraine's - and the global - peril. The absolute sacrifice, iow. Spare me a lecture on what is "immoral".
You demonstrate little conception of reality outside the MSM bubble, you think reality must conveniently conform to a priori, acontextual principles. 
 
 

The sooner the Russians complete the encirclement of Bakhmut, liquidate all the fighters within and move on to eliminating Zelensky's Biden-blackmailing human sacrificing clown regime -- the better for Ukrainians, Russians and Americans.

Excerpt:
"Russia refuses to accept a negotiated outcome that entails its retreat from the Donbas or Crimea. Moscow now insists that Ukraine accede to the suicidal Minsk II agreement that would effectively convert Ukraine into a confederation whose sovereignty could be punctured at any point by the Donbas, much as the confederacy attempted to destroy the Union in the American Civil War 150 years ago. Yet it remains the case that the real problem with the Misnk II accords is that Russia has never even bothered to hide its refusal to comply with it in any form. Thus its demands are without merit and a dodge to avoid compliance. At the heart of this crisis is the fact that Russia still cannot accept Ukraine’s de jure independence as a sovereign and separate state. In Moscow, power rests on the notion of an imperial state to whom all other members of the former Warsaw Pact must surrender part of their sovereignty".
I maintain "propaganda" on this article. A load of assertions creating a 'flipped narrative'. Perhaps and unsurprising not being mentioned much in the msm, but in the past year, ex-Ukraine President Poroshenko, the ex-Chancellor Merkel, and ex-President Hollande have each confirmed independently that their meetings at Minsk were never meant to bear fruit, "suicidal" for Ukraine - or life-saving for the Donbass.
They reiterated the same duplicitous purpose, Minsk in 2014/15 was "to buy time" to build the Ukraine Army for - obviously - wiping out the Donbass resistance - and its coming, anticipated encounter with the Russian Army.
As everyone should know, Zelensky was elected on the platform "peace in Donbass": he backed down to threats from his ultra-nationalists and continued the (civil) war with a vengeance. Not the only time, he again backed down to Johnson/Biden just before beginning negotiations with Russia in March that could have ended hostilities (by simply implementing "Minsk" and declaring Ukraine neutrality). He is a traitor to his country. He sacrificed his people to Western blandishments and promises of a glorious victory over Russia...
 

Excerpt:
"Russia refuses to accept a negotiated outcome that entails its retreat from the Donbas or Crimea. Moscow now insists that Ukraine accede to the suicidal Minsk II agreement that would effectively convert Ukraine into a confederation whose sovereignty could be punctured at any point by the Donbas, much as the confederacy attempted to destroy the Union in the American Civil War 150 years ago. Yet it remains the case that the real problem with the Misnk II accords is that Russia has never even bothered to hide its refusal to comply with it in any form. Thus its demands are without merit and a dodge to avoid compliance. At the heart of this crisis is the fact that Russia still cannot accept Ukraine’s de jure independence as a sovereign and separate state. In Moscow, power rests on the notion of an imperial state to whom all other members of the former Warsaw Pact must surrender part of their sovereignty".
I maintain "propaganda" on this article. A load of assertions creating a 'flipped narrative'. Perhaps and unsurprising not being mentioned much in the msm, but in the past year, ex-Ukraine President Poroshenko, the ex-Chancellor Merkel, and ex-President Hollande have each confirmed independently that their meetings at Minsk were never meant to bear fruit, "suicidal" for Ukraine - or life-saving for the Donbass.
They reiterated the same duplicitous purpose, Minsk in 2014/15 was "to buy time" to build the Ukraine Army for - obviously - wiping out the Donbass resistance - and its coming, anticipated encounter with the Russian Army.
As everyone should know, Zelensky was elected on the platform "peace in Donbass": he backed down to threats from his ultra-nationalists and continued the (civil) war with a vengeance. Not the only time, he again backed down to Johnson/Biden just before beginning negotiations with Russia in March that could have ended hostilities (by simply implementing "Minsk" and declaring Ukraine neutrality). He is a traitor to his country. He sacrificed his people to Western blandishments and promises of a glorious victory over Russia...
 

The latest (2019) and predictive film by Oliver Stone, some rehashed evidence, some new.
https://youtu.be/lRivDlc_hz4
 

To be pro-Western/American, borrowing Twain's phrase --yes, when they, the government, "deserves it".
A government is not to be obsequiously obeyed, "since they are ¬the Government¬, after all!".
An institution is only as "good" as the individuals charged, elected, appointed to running it, an objective good. ("Of objective value? For whom and for what purpose?").
The reputation of the USA doesn't absolve it from corrupt men and women with evil ambitions in power. Among all of them and their European counterparts I've been watching, Putin and Lavrov are emerging as the only sober adults, not disconnected from reality, in the room.
Every present western gvt. does not "deserve it". Their leaders reveal themselves to be morally bankrupt and cognitively deficient, and some, probable militant sociopaths. In covert conspiracy, they premeditated and deliberately prolong this war for material and geopolitical gains, have ducked using their certain influence to curtail it, and are now running about like headless chickens because it didn't turn out as expected, and all they have to offer is more of the same poison ... and hope *anything* turns up to save their embarrassment: Like a little nuke.
They have brought the world to the brink of holocaust - because they mustn't be seen to 'lose face'. Where did these second-hander bureaucrats and corporatists and media chiefs earn the right to tinker with the lives of Ukrainians  - or the present and future world population?
Just who do they think they are? Where did they find their authority?
What's occurring is the end game, anticipated by some clear thinkers then, which began 30 years ago with the assurance "Not one more inch eastwards", and every action after that has displayed utter contempt by the West for Russia and its concerns. The Western govt's deserve whatever they will get now - their people, even useful idiots, don't.
Many as you, are obedient to the State whatever it does. A reminder, "Statism is the cause of war - statism *needs* wars". You all give the state the sanction it needs.
 
 

To be pro-Western/American, borrowing Twain's phrase --yes, when they, the government, "deserves it".
A government is not to be obsequiously obeyed, "since they are ¬the Government¬, after all!".
An institution is only as "good" as the individuals charged, elected, appointed to running it, an objective good. ("Of objective value? For whom and for what purpose?").
The reputation of the USA doesn't absolve it from corrupt men and women with evil ambitions in power. Among all of them and their European counterparts I've been watching, Putin and Lavrov are emerging as the only sober adults, not disconnected from reality, in the room.
Every present western gvt. does not "deserve it". Their leaders reveal themselves to be morally bankrupt and cognitively deficient, and some, probable militant sociopaths. In covert conspiracy, they premeditated and deliberately prolong this war for material and geopolitical gains, have ducked using their certain influence to curtail it, and are now running about like headless chickens because it didn't turn out as expected, and all they have to offer is more of the same poison ... and hope *anything* turns up to save their embarrassment: Like a little nuke.
They have brought the world to the brink of holocaust - because they mustn't be seen to 'lose face'. Where did these second-hander bureaucrats and corporatists and media chiefs earn the right to tinker with the lives of Ukrainians  - or the present and future world population?
Just who do they think they are? Where did they find their authority?
What's occurring is the end game, anticipated by some clear thinkers then, which began 30 years ago with the assurance "Not one more inch eastwards", and every action after that has displayed utter contempt by the West for Russia and its concerns. The Western govt's deserve whatever they will get now - their people, even useful idiots, don't.
Many as you, are obedient to the State whatever it does. A reminder, "Statism is the cause of war - statism *needs* wars". You all give the state the sanction it needs.
 
 

Scholar, Glenn Diesen one of the most balanced, independent voices out there.
https://www.rt.com/russia/561135-russia-nato-ukraine-propaganda/

The U.S. has always been an empire, both legally and culturally.  Ever encounter the principle of "Manifest Destiny" in American history?  What is new is the degenerate corruption, arrogance and recklessness of the de facto ruling class.  It is a consequence of the ending of the long Cold War with the Soviets, who by simply existing at least kept the American leaders somewhat in check.  It is now a unipolar political world, a world organized around only one great power, America.  There is no one and nothing to dispel the illusions and self-deceptions of the American leaders, except the eventual disasters that bad policy creates, and not even then as long as some other country does the suffering.

Mind is secondary to existence since mind is a faculty of awareness. To be aware one should be aware of something. To deny existence is more than to deny mind. It’s a contradiction in terms since the process of denial is an action of mind. If there is no existence than there is no mind and one can’t deny anything.

We've been over that too. Democracy cannot be pressured on countries, they, the majority within them, need to discover its benefits for themselves - ideologically - otherwise the commitment to it will not last from one generation to the next. Then the slippage back to authoritarianism.
No more can it be "making the world safe for democracy" - delivering "Democracy" around to the natives, missionary-style. The system is not new on any, any more.
Additionally, and generally in the West, the exemplars of the system aren't as dedicated as they once were. Yet they keep up the pretensions of nominal adherence to democracies.
It's becoming more today like making the world safe for plutocracy. Or corporatocracy, perhaps.

You were "not as clueless" as I was. You kept yourself "in the light" - Was all you have proferred about the Maidan and Donbas events.
I have finally figured btw, your demands for "evidence" is a cover for evasion.
 
Not clueless, you must have overlooked or were not allowed to know of a few minor details that don't put many Ukrainians in a good light:
Graphic content.
 

The opposite of altruistic, Russia has proven they will resist sacrificing themselves. A high cost to pay, but rational if the values gained are hierarchically higher.
Please, let's not be naive, there exist no other "groups" which could and would have enforced a just solution to NATO expansion, NATO building a greater Ukraine army, Ukraine's neutrality, the failed MInsk accords, etc. --in short: Russia's security concerns.
The extreme and insane efforts we see by NATO et al to assist the Ukraine forces in defeating Russia while avoiding an armistice, even when it is looking very bad for Ukraine, should remind anyone that this is all being done by NATO for a *non*-NATO member (I don't know, if legally)--now imagine what they'd do for Ukraine within NATO!
A permanent neighboring presence with a large and well trained NATO military contingent - in addition, being able to base ICBM's near the border any time they wanted, and any other measures intended to destabilize and threaten Russia.
Those conditions ~would~ pose the "existential threat" Putin is always on about; a ploy he used as self-justification for his belligerence- say the media pundits. 
 Except he predicted correctly. NATO plus Ukraine are plainly demonstrating their enmity to Russia, for all time.
To avoid that certain scenario in years to come, a rational far-sighted leader would know to act now.
Among the many facts to interpret, that I consider Russia "a legitimate government" or not, is of little importance.
Any country's gvt. has the right and responsibility to defend its citizens, in this case, pre-emptive self-defense, even if from another attacking country with 'better' governance and liberties. The legitimacy of the Kyiv Gvt. has little to boast about on that basis. One cannot claim "self determination" for one 'group' in a nation, forcibly denying the right to another.  
What matters, do the Russian people consider it legitimate? Does Putin and his Gvt. policies represent their interests? Do they back him?
On his approval rating still in the 80's, it seems they do. Many I think don't like this war (most don't hate the Ukrainian 'enemy' anything like they hate Russians), but I have noticed Russians articulate their understanding that there wasn't another way, no other options to external pressures, and simply want the war over quickly.

How westerners were permanently indoctrinated into a unified, collective mind (in a monolithic, 'alternate reality').
A Swiss study:
"The Propaganda Multiplier"

https://swprs.org/the-propaganda-multiplier/
 
 

" Docudramas" are not usually for me, but the film looks to my slight experience an authentic taste (to you warhawks present) of the micro realities in battle. Features the "Yellows" versus "Whites", neither shown in particular moral preference; while propagandist certainly for the infamous private Wagner Group. If war is hell, so you don't enter it lightly--but when you do, all bets are off.  I aim that, of course, at the Western alliance, who initiated and made the conditions for war unavoidable, and who tellingly shunned any diplomatic steps to stop it. The hypocrites who pretty it up and glamorize their Ukraine "heroes" (to their detriment) to justify prolonging and dangerously expanding the conflict for foul purposes.
"200's" are killed, "300's" the wounded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ZxWaRHhnQ