we thought it was over, but it came back. i grew up in a period where we defined ourselves by being post-war. i have no interest in this. i don't care about domestic issues or independence movements in historical russia. it's not my war. i want this to end.
the russians don't trust the west and they have very good reasons not to trust the west. napoleon. hitler. then the cold war. the americans didn't trust the russians either, although they had less justification for it. the russians never invaded western europe; western europe invaded russia several times.
it's no mystery how to end this. the suspicion and distrust has to end. there needs to be a focus on rebuilding trust.
the russians need to trust us before the war can end. and we need to trust them to trust us. we will need to make concessions to do that.
this strongman language of strength and weakness and power and dominance will just perpetuate a conflict that should no longer exist. it's an anachronism. the basic point brought up in russian media is true; western governments banned the tv station and the youtube sites because what the russian media said is true - nato weapons in ukraine seriously threaten russian security. there's no way to get around this. it's true. there's no value in putting those weapons there. withdrawing them from ukraine back to poland is a reasonable concession for the purpose of building trust with the russians.
only mutual trust ends this.
not power. not dominance. not strategy. trust.