i acknowledge that it's somewhat of a gloss on the facts, but in russia the narrative is that ukraine is preventing the east from succeeding, after it voted to leave, and this is fundamentally actually true, even if it ignores the attacks on kyiv and the rest of the country, who have not vote to secede and probably won't.

it's not dissimilar from the american civil war in a lot of ways, with zelensky playing the role of lincoln and the russians acting like the british empire, except, in this telling of history, the south secedes and rejoins the empire.

when you drop all the bullshit and look at the basic conflict, zelensky is fighting a war to prevent the east from seceding, which is fundamentally an attack on democracy. there's good reason to question his democratic legitimacy, and to question the democratic legitimacy of his position in the war. 

does trudeau actually believe the nonsense he's spouting about ukraine or is he just reading something somebody gave him? is he ignorant or stupid?

not only should a condition of ending the war not be ukraine in nato, it should be the withdrawal of nato troops from poland back to germany, and the americans should be realizing right now how important it is that they occupy germany, which is a vanquished enemy, not an ally or friend. the importance of occupying germany has never been more apparent than it is right now.

should the russians give back the territory they've (re)claimed from ukraine since 2014? well, that should be up to the people that live there, who are russian speaking and who voted to join russia. maybe there should be another vote, but if what you're going on about is saving democracy, you have to realize it would be undemocratic to send these people back to ukraine, when they want to be a part of russia.

this war was inevitable, after the coup in moscow 35 years ago. it took too long to happen, really. you should stand with the people - the actual people - and not with either military, one of which is a totalitarian system and the other of which is a protection racket. that means listening to them when they vote and self-organize, even if you don't like the outcome.