Some Videos

This refers to the protests in Iran, from a female scholar within Iran:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUucX0FcBBg

This refers to Ukraine, from a Russian liberal anti-war activist who went to Donbass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OysQ7yQl_o

Update August 2022

So, I have been struggling with a complicated emotional situation, and wanted to talk about the situation to an extent. Ordering this stuff is difficult, and I don't know how in depth I wish to go. In March, when I returned from Russia, I tried to write something up, but I also didn't want to force politics on people. The fact of the matter is that the road that led to the sanctions against Russia and massive Russophobia in the West is long and complex, and to even begin to attempt to explain it in a way for you to understand is probably too much for most.

I don't care if you are for or against Russia's most recent actions. The fact of the matter is that war is horrible and awful no matter what, should only be taken as a matter of last resort, and I don't believe that anyone who doesn't have an in depth understanding of what led to Russia's actions has any right to support it. I personally believe that you should admit that you don't know what has been going on in Donbass and not take sides, but Americans are used to needing to take sides in conflicts and somehow believing they understand what is going on in a country on the other side of the world.

What I care about -- justifying Russian sanctions, justifying Russophobia (both of which predate this year!), spouting CIA talking points, while implying any information source outside of the "mainstream media," is just Russian propaganda and conspiracy theorists, assuming that I have not carefully thought about what people have told me about what is going on in a situation which affects me, forgetting the fact that I have talked with Russians, Ukrainians, and people from Donbass, as well as American and Canadian activists in the past, and that I know what is told in the American media, as well as reports from journalists who have been to Donbass, disbelieving in my ability to put everything in context and analyze the full picture of what is going on, and just in general discounting the experiences and perspectives of the people in Donbass and Russia.

I am going to try to go about this as a summary, to focus on how events have impacted me. For people who wish to actually read into the full history of the current Ukrainian civil war, I can provide some links and some thoughts.

Pushing pass American propaganda 

 -- The government which claims to represent me has announced its intention at the total destruction of my people.

 -- Democracy means that Russians get to choose their government, not the US. Democracy means that Russia stands up for the interests of the Russian people and does not submit to American geo-political desires.

I have a podcast to show you : Government Secrets 31 from 13:55 to 23:10 -- These people talk about how people in the Middle East have dealt with the American interventions there. 

When you listen to this, and think it is not relevant, just remember, sanctions are also war. One way this was explained to me is that during the blockade of Leningrad, the vast majority of the deaths were due to exposure and starvation, not the shelling. The broad sanctions the US and their satellite states applied to Russia starting in February are explicitly designed to destroy the economy of a population, specifically targeting ordinary people, making their lives unbearable, in an effort to persuade them to remove their leaders and put in someone more friendly to the US. 

So, whatever you believe about the war, when you talk about the sanctions against Russia as being in anyway legitimate, remember that you are talking about trying to destroy and subjugate a population and culture. And Russians, like Iranians, Afghans, Syrians, Venezuelans, Cubans, etc, are not stupid and know who is to blame for their suffering. (I find it weird how John Oliver can talk about the poverty and suffering of a people without even mentioning the blatant American sanctions and theft of national property.)

In 2019, I listened to a woman from Donbass describe her experiences. One of the things she said was that when the Minsk Accords were written, they would have worked, but now, after years of bombardment by Kiev, people would never accept their rule. I remember thinking it was a weird note at the time, since governments are always killing their people and trying to subjugate them. Now I realize just how strongly the attacks on Russia, Russian independence, democracy, and culture, by the US establishment affect me, even while realizing that this is normal.

It is funny how at that time, I also thought the comment of another Ukrainian, that the Nazis were freedom fighters, not conquerors, was, while upsetting, not significant. I knew the whole role reversal thing between the Soviet Union and the Nazis in WWII was a common belief in Eastern Europe. (Some links which provide further links -- A, B, C) I guess I never thought about the fact that Americans didn't know this.

The US has a habit of inflating the problems within enemy foreign countries and dismissing the problems domestically in a way to paint a picture of a struggle between good and evil and create consent for their interventions. Even if you don't believe that you fall in line with their dialogs, the news sources you read certainly buy into this narrative, and so do the emotions which you have shown me when we get in these arguments. 

Just note that victims of American aggression, including Russians, don't have the same perspective of the relative importance of American crimes vs non-American ones. Russians very much understand Russian diplomacy has been constantly met by American aggression and arrogance for the past few decades. Seriously, Russia willingly dismantled their empire in an act of peace and good will, while the US used this as an opening to expand NATO up to the new Russian border in order to encircle Russia, while the UK and local allies have disseminated propaganda in ensure consent for this expansion. The US has been systematically leaving cold war arms control treaties since the beginning of the century, preferring to line the Russian border with American weapons pointed at Russia.

And any illusions that these actions are not blatantly hostile and a legitimate threat should be immediately dispelled by NATO's destruction of Yugoslavia as well as the Middle East.

 -- Denial of the right to self-defence.

Look, hopefully I have shown you that it doesn't matter if Russia has done something horrible by entering into Donbass, Americans have no right to judge or be at all ok with any of this manufacturing for consent for attempting to destroy or subjugate Russia. However, what you probably don't know is that Donbass has been experiencing this destruction by the Ukrainian state. 

 -- Belief that you understand something you do not.

For instance, not realizing that Putin was the one responsible for delaying war in Ukraine as long as possible and trying to solve the issues diplomatically, while ordinary people of Russia, Crimea, and the Donbass region have wanted this intervention for years. Not realizing that these same people, which have been begging for the Russian intervention, are motivated in part by their memories of the horrors of WWII and a sheer hatred for war.

Not realizing that Putin has a popularity rating that US presidents could only dream of, which comes from the fact that he forced the oligarchs in line, out of power, thus ending the horrors of the 90s, while standing up to the US, in support of Russian interests. Not realizing that this popularity comes in spite of criticism of Putin, as in people understand his rule in a complex, thought out manner, and not based on these good vs evil, us vs them, fanatic patriot narratives. This fact can be emphasized by the fact that Putin's popularity in Asian countries, for instance China, is actually greater than in Russia.

Not realizing that not all countries go to war to crush their enemies like the US does. Not all countries believe in discriminating against citizens of enemy countries. Not all countries want total dominance of their "allies."

 -- Who are the Ukrainian Nazi? Do they exist? Is this really different from other countries? Is the problem of Nazis and genocide being overstated by Russia? Do either the genocide or Nazis justify Russia entering Ukraine with troops?

I am going to skip over the first of these questions just to go through the yes / no questions. There are plenty of analyses. Here are a couple I quickly found from before this year -- A, B. 

Yes, there are Nazis. Yes, the problem is greater than typical. No, the problem is not overstated. And, no, these problems don't justify Russia's intervention. For anyone who knows about my positions, the last statement may come as a surprise. 

Russia's most recent actions comes as a culmination of an 8 year diplomatic effort, which has been systematically subverted by Western actors and openly neo-Nazi factions within Ukraine. Russia first tried to negotiate a compromise solution to the Maiden protests, only to have that escalate to a coup when a third party began shooting indiscriminately, allowing fascists to force the president to flee. In South-Eastern Ukraine, anti-Maiden protesters came out to protest the coup and the policies of the new government, only to be put down violently in a wave of pogroms and military crackdowns so violent that the majority of the military defected, leading to a civil war. (The mass defection and other issues led to the fascist, openly neo-Nazi brigades being incorporated into the Ukrainian army.) While these people declared their independence and tried to join Russia, Russia refused, instead insisting on them negotiating with Ukraine and coming to an agreement to satisfy everyone. This led to the Minsk Accords, which were never honored by Ukraine, who refused to consider the people of the Donbass republics as legitimate people, Ukrainian citizens, with their own interests and desires. Ukraine, instead of following through on the Minsk Accords, decided to fortify the regions of Donetsk and Luansk which they controlled, preparing for war, as well as never stopping the shelling. (The former Ukrainian president has since confirmed that he never intended to fulfil the Minsk Accords and only used them to help buy time to build up a powerful army.) Russia has tried to deal with this by continuously trying to show the suffering of the people of the Donbass to the West, while pushing to get Ukraine to implement the Accords.

Russia has no right to govern the situation of Ukraine at all in the regions where the population supports Kiev or at the very least has not asked for Russia's help. Russia's right is limited to providing requested help for the people for whom Russia promised aid and protection after request, and to provide that support in the most diplomatic and least confrontational or violent way possible, ensuring every violent action taken is directed at its intended or necessary target. Donbass gets to judge what actions are needed in Donbass, if the discrimination is real and a problem, not Russia or Ukraine. If it were not for the people in the relevant regions asking for help, the legitimacy of this request based on the history and situation, the attempts by Russia to focus on diplomacy and humanitarian aid while waiting for the last possible moment to intervene militarily, continued desires for diplomacy, Russia avoiding striking civilian targets, Russia's obligations to protect Crimea and the legitimate threat to Russia as a result, and the fact that the population of Donbass lived on the border, necessitating a first strike to prevent an invasion, it would not matter how bad the situation were in Ukraine, Russia would have no right to intervene. 

Yes, Russia was not just provoked into war with Ukraine, but forced into it. Putin has for the past 8 years been amazing at refusing to go to war despite ample motive. And, besides, entering into a blatant American trap is a horrible decision, if not absolutely necessary. 

Seriously, the patience from Russia, from China, even from Iran, with respect to the US and their belligerence has just been amazing to watch. Especially given that these people are not exactly peace activists. If the US was on the receiving end of even a fraction of the American provocations, the US would attempt to destroy that country instantly. The US is still blockading Cuba for having the nerve to choose their own government.

 -- Response to: Russia wanted to set up the Minsk Accords to force Ukraine to remain neutral.

Whether or not this is true, Ukraine refused to, and continually refuses to, accept the independence of the people of the Donbass republics. Ukraine has continued to state that they refuse to give up their rights to the land. I bring this up because I have had people tell me that they respect people's right to self determination, but Russia wants the Accords to force Ukraine to be neutral. I don't want to get into the legitimate security concerns of Russia as the US, a state which regularly destroys countries and people to enforce their will, marches to their border and attempts to encircle them, using extremists and manipulating popular sentiment in order to manufacture consent in the surrounding countries. (Russia knows this last point is happening because school textbooks propagating the so-called double genocide theory have been found in Russia as well. These propaganda networks have been linked to the UK government in certain instances.) Certain populations, which were a part of Ukraine, wanted to leave Ukraine due to their population being killed by the Ukrainian state. Ukraine said no. They continue to say no. If they said yes, there would be no more territorial disputes, and they wouldn't need to compromise with the ethnic Russian population to get what they wanted. They would be free to align with Europe against Russia. But they said no. Minsk was set up as a compromise -- they could keep the land (making nationalists happy) and would just not be allowed to subjugate the population on the land -- as in if they refuse to give up the land they must take the people with it. Ukraine still can at any point give up their right to their Russian-aligned territory, declare that it is not worth fighting over people who don't want them, but they continue to refuse to do so. I can't promise that at this point that this would be enough to end the war, as Russia and the Donbass republics understandably would not trust this, but it would certainly help.

 -- Response to: Russia denies this is a war.

While I can't tell you what the Russian government officials are thinking, this certainly is not true for Russians which support the operation. I have never heard anyone say this is not war. No civilian, no matter what they believe, would not call this a war. What people do say (or rather point out) is that the war began in 2014, not 2022.

And I would like to point out some basic linguistic facts. Russia calls their actions a special military operation. A military operation is military, as in it is a part of a war. In fact, in Russian, the word military -- военный, has the same root as the word for war -- война. 

What happened in February 2022

The US news organizations, acting on behalf of the CIA, started to claim that the CIA had intelligence that Russia was about to invade Ukraine. Zelensky told them to stop (because it was scaring people out of Ukraine, not because he didn't believe it) and Russian officials laughed off the claims in the way that they do when Western voices say something obviously wrong, stupid and blatantly Russophobic. 

One such outlet gave a date, February 16th. I don't remember if it was the 16th or 17th, but around that time, ceasefire violations picked up from the Ukrainian side. This action, as well as intelligence reports of the likelihood of an imminent Ukrainian invasion, caused the Donbass republics to conscript all men and evacuate their entire civilian population into Russia. Russia then past laws to provide support for the refugees. 

Ukrainian saboteurs were caught at the border and attacks on civilian infrastructure were observed. As a result, on the 22nd, Russian Duma passed an almost unanimous decision to recognize the Donbass republics. Putin then took several hours to contemplate whether or not he would accept this recognition. In a solemn tone he finally did, and asked Duma to authorise military support for the Donbass republics. 

The next day, on the 23rd, Russian troops entered the Donbass on the invitation of the local governments. No shots were fired by either side. It had appeared that, at least for a time, the presence of Russian troops was enough to discourage Ukrainian attacks on the Donbass region. Eventually, Ukraine broke the ceasefire, prompting Russia to begin their operation. For the first 4 days of the offensive, Russia avoided heavy artillery, hoping that the ordinary Ukrainian soldiers would just surrender and nobody would need to die. When this wasn't happening, Russia reduced how much they were holding back.

I believe it was Scott Ritter who suggested that the intelligence the CIA probably had that Russia was about to invade was the Ukrainian governments battle plans for retaking Donbass. He is one of several Western military experts analyzing Russia's military actions, and like others pointed out that Russian military actions are characteristic of a reaction and not a planned invasion as well as showing remarkable level of restraint. (One weird example pointed out by Richard Black was a Russian tank stopping when civilians blocked a road.) He also pointed out that the Russian troop movements earlier were real and intended to be a threat / bluff to persuade the US to take Russian concerns seriously, and that the encirclement of Kiev was intended as a feint. 

Support for Russia

The reality is that most of the population of the world, outside of the influence of the US, view Russia's actions as historic in the same way as when Russia turned back Neapolitan and Hitler. Like both those instances, Russia, not being the good guy and just looking after their own security (as in, trying not to die or be conquered), has successfully stopped and begun the military pushback against the evil empire which had been previously decimating populations. This is why non-Russian speaking civilians in many countries will rally in support of Russia (and they do). It doesn't matter that Russia has a massive corruption problem, an economy based on resource and weapon sales, is blatantly neo-liberal and not socialist (as in supports the wealthy and not the populace), is acting completely based on self interest, has repeatedly done everything they could to avoid confrontation with the US, et cetera -- Russia is finally pushing back the American empire, and this means that their futures have hope.

In Russia, Donbass and Crimea, support for Russia's actions remain extremely high. When Putin finally made the announcement of military support of Donbass, people were celebrating, especially in Donbass and Crimea. While in the Westernized Moscow and St. Petersburg protests against war began, Putin's approval rating, after dropping over the pandemic, began to go up again. Russians developed their own slogans and signs for supporting the operation as a way to fight back against anti-war demonstrations and propaganda. I believe the support numbers are quoted to be in the 70-80% range, but I have not memorized them and they fluctuate. I do know the numbers are higher in the "Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine" than they are in Russia, meaning the population most affected by the situation supports Russia (and will refer to Kiev as terrorist). Most of the dialog with respect to the war is whether or not Russia should have engaged earlier, not whether or not Russia should have engaged at all. Contrast this to every one of the US's misguided wars. 

And when I talk about people supporting Russia, they are not doing it because they are "buying into Russian state propaganda." As I said people believe Russia should have intervened earlier. They had also expressed such positions earlier. Between Minsk and the special operation, coverage of the Ukrainian Civil War had mostly disappeared in Western news sources. Not so in Russia, where many people had actual family connections with people in the region and knew that it was still a war zone. Such images were shown all the time on the news networks. Even without this, since the start of the civil war, Russia has been accepting refugees from Ukraine, and people in the regions where the refugees went know this as they have seen them. One of the numbers I have read was that 400,000 Ukrainians received a Russian passport from the time of the Maidan coup to the time when Russia started offering Ukrainians in Donbass the ability to get a Russian passport. (The cited reason for this being that Donetsk and Luansk documents were not accepted internationally and Ukraine refused to provide services to people residing in the Donbass republics.)

In 2019, I had listened to a woman talk about the civil war, and she said that at the time the Minsk Accords were written, people would have accepted them, but now that they have been bombarded by Kiev for years non-stop, people would no longer accept rule by the Kiev regime. Even if you consider her perspective biased and non-representative, it certainly confirms the bombardment by Kiev which has been a constant feature in the lives of the people in the Donbass region since the start of the civil war.

And to be completely clear, the support for Russia's decision is based on Eastern Ukrainians want the war to end and not wanting to die -- that is why the voted for Zelensky, and that is why they support Russia's decision. This is their main priority. Russia will force Ukraine to end the war and bombing, protecting both the lives of the people of the region and their right to have their own culture and speak their own language. If Russia had not acted in that way, Ukraine would have come in, killing any potential resistance, arresting and torturing anyone whom they didn't kill with any traces of Russian sympathies, and force the remainder of the population to "Ukrainize." Their proof is that this is what has been going on, what they have experienced over the past 8 years. The crackdown on both dissent and the Russian culture and language has been (not so) slowly escalating, and while television programming has become strictly censored, people have been appearing on television making blatantly genocidal statements, while politicians and diplomats have also. Every dissenting politician is assassinated. There is a website which has been set up to allow civilians to know their targets and perform these assassinations. 

(Yes, I link to an article about the site because I refuse to link to a blatantly terrorist cite. The links to the site are in the article if you need to confirm its existence. Also strange -- the articles from the images of the site shown are written in Russian, not Ukrainian. The word "ЛИКВИДИРОВАН" stated as being Ukrainian is in fact Russian, not Ukrainian. The text on the side is in English or Ukrainian. The easiest way for people unfamiliar with the languages to tell the difference is the use of the "і" character.)

For Crimea, the residents understand that they would be next after the Donbass. Ukraine, besides cutting off their power and water and trying to intervene to prevent Russia from developing an alternative water source to the dammed river, has made it quite clear that they intend to retake Crimea and don't care at all about the wishes or wellbeing of the population.

Dictatorships vs the Free World

One pattern which I have noticed is that the US calls any country they can't control a dictatorship, while countries under their control can be called democracies. So basically, if your rulers serve foreign interests, you live in a democracy, while if they serve the interest of the people, it is a dictatorship. 

Putin is called a dictator, and otherwise maligned, because he stood up to the oligarchs and the US. This is why he is loved in Russia and why he is hated in the West. Yelson, who was controllable by the US, was a democratic leader, despite the fact that he reigned over the catastrophic 90s in Russia which was an oligarchy and mafia state, and the fact that the US got Yelson reelected is well known. 

Zelensky, on the other hand, who has been privatizing Ukrainian public assets and cutting workers rights (things which are unpopular in Ukraine), is somehow a democratic hero. 

These examples serve two points:

1) There is a kind of role reversal going on with these terms. Obviously, at least to anyone outside of the West, the free world would be the part of the world where the government is receptive to the interests of its people, rather than to, for instance, the American empire. Unprecedented unity in western organizations indicate authoritarian thinking and manufactured consent, which is very clearly enforced by bullying (as in people see the bullying and propaganda involved, not just the unity), while real democratic organizations, like BRICS and the SCO, have countries working together despite the fact that they don't trust each other or like each other.

2) You need to be very careful about the use of these loaded terms. Often times you will get a perspective of a situation very much manipulated in such a way as to invoke consent for American imperial interests, even if you disagree with those interests.

Summary and Conclusion

Nothing I have presented is in any way an authoritative view of what people are experiencing, but rather an expression of my pain when I continuously hear people projecting their sense of superiority on me, denying my experiences and needs.

When I think of and talk of Russia as being democratic in contrast to the authoritarian West, it is because people don't trust the government, don't trust the commentators, don't agree on anything, not because the government is somehow democratic. The understandings and beliefs of people is not uniform. People have different understanding, different experiences. They don't need to take sides, but rather analyze the situation independent of political factions.

Many people in non-Western countries legitimately look to the West for inspiration, as their leaders are horrible, as politicians tend to be. These politicians and officials do act like authoritarian jerks, maybe no more than they do in the West, but it doesn't mean it isn't real, and for people who don't have enough of an understanding to compare between Western and non-Western governance in an honest manner, the image of these wealthy countries being shining examples of democracy and what could be is very appealing. Western countries, besides possessing wealth, have not in recent times domestically experienced the political upheavals and societal collapses that are common in the world.

But yes, I am horrified as to what is going on in Ukraine, what has been going on in Ukraine, and fully believe that the US (and the UK and Canada) should not have done that. 

Some Links, Limited for Now

Information pushback -- 

These are sources, often started by Russian civilians with various political views, intended to cut through the Western narrative and war propaganda on the Russian special military operation.

This one I would describe as an English language pro-Russian propaganda channel. I would characterize their style as providing one side, as in either propaganda by omission and opinion-based reporting, or intended as supplemental to Western coverage. I don't think they are lying, but are blatantly one-sided. I don't actually use them, I just bookmarked them in case I want to find them again.

American dissidents -- 

These are people from the American left, socialists, progressives, etc. who were pushed out of that movement by the liberals when their causes were coopted by the US imperial structures while they insisted on retaining their anti-imperial analysis. One of them who I have been listening to is comedian Lee Camp, former host of Redacted Tonight, which was on RT America. He links news articles from non-mainstream sources here.

American journalism advocates -- 

Investigative journalists and journalism advocates have been another voice in pushing against the American narrative, and being censored and maligned for doing so. 

Some links I have are: Consortium News, Grayzone

Aaron Mate specifically has pushed back against attempts to use loaded terms to accuse journalists of being dishonest with no proof, in order to avoid addressing what they have uncovered.

March - April 2022

Update -- I wrote this in April, but never posted it due to the political analysis included. Much of this is still relevant, but seems weird to update as my perspectives have evolved since then, and retaining the record of my historical perspectives seem useful.

----------------------------------------------------------

So, I have been slow to continue to write. Life has been complicated for me.

I am going to go over a few points: 

Story status -- I don't know. I have a redo of the first chapter ready, but part of the problem is that I haven't been interested in drawing for the past few years. This is normal for me. I tend to phase in and out my drawing interest. When I went back over all the comments I have had from my work, both the drafts and the original prologue, I had noticed that my style requires images to work properly. I hate describing verbally a physical situation, so I need the images for the correct level of immersion. I am sorry I have been so slow, while still not wanting to declare that I am done with this project. I don't know. I like my stories, I am just bad at it. I can publish the text of a draft / outline of a story I have which I don't like so much for complicated reasons but shows certain themes I wish to show. I may decide to do that, or edit that draft some to add more such themes. 

Personal status -- I was in Russia from October to the beginning of March and am planning on returning in May.

Thoughts of current affairs -- I don't know how much I want to tell in this regard, mostly because I don't think people will understand. If I thought I could explain my position in a way people would accept it, I would.

Here is a good video I found of people explaining the situation. Here is an article.

  * What exactly is your position? 

To put it briefly, I believe all people and animals have the fundamental right to self defence. Yes, this includes Donbass (against Ukraine), Russia (against the US and NATO), and Ukraine (against Russia). I will not go further into this besides to note that this is an unusual viewpoint in the modern world, where people tend to value either allowing aggression (as long as it is their own) or complete pacifism.

When I saw Putin announce the recognition of Donbass, I knew right then that the West was going to completely ignore the 30 year advance of NATO, the US dropping out of all Soviet-era arms control treaties, the continual increasing sanctions already put on Russia, including wanting to cut Russia off from SWIFT over the Nord Stream 2 project, the 8 year civil war in Ukraine, the attempts of Putin to resolve Maiden, the civil war, and his concerns with NATO diplomatically, the nationalistic violence and rise to prominence of the Ukrainian nationalists post-Maiden, the anti-Maiden protests which were put down violently, which combined with the pogroms led to the civil war, the fact that Zelensky was elected on a pro-peace, pro-Minsk agreement platform, etc. and call Putin the aggressor. 

I can't really describe what it feels like when I see someone under assault and having everyone else act as if they are the bad guy when they decide to defend themselves, but it makes me feel powerless, helpless, vulnerable. Especially when attempts are made to resolve the issue without resorting to violence first. If you combine this with the fact that the government which claims to represent me (the US) effectively declared war on my people (which is Russia in this case), the whole situation is very traumatising for me. I know the sanctions, Russia-phobia, censorship, etc. have been going on for a while, but it doesn't make it better. The forcible separation of Russia and Ukraine as well as Russia from Europe amplifies the situation, especially for someone who has been in contact with both Russians and Ukrainians while studying Russian.

I know, war is terrible. Russia tried to resolve these issues diplomatically for 7/8/15 years and got nowhere. Well, they got somewhere -- they had more sanctions placed on them, more people dying in Donbass or fleeing the region, more NATO weapons in Ukraine. When they took action in Crimea (or more recently Kazakhstan) they prevented the violence and resolved the issues, which probably partially explains why they decided to switch tactics. 

And yes, all the sanctions and pressure on Russia has had the opposite of the (supposedly) intended effect -- increasing rather than decreasing their likelihood to resort to violence, increasing Putin's popularity, increasing support for nationalism and for authoritarian measures. But the US accepts nothing less than total submission.

However, I am actually against Russia entering Ukraine because I view it as a US trap, especially considering how close the date is to when the US said it would be, and you should never invade a country on the request of an enemy (even if this was what you were planning on doing, as you can just change your plans). Here is an article on this concept. Russia was supposed to invade on the 16th of February, violence against Donbass picked up on the 17th. The civilians were evacuated from Donbass into Russia. After Duma declared Donetsk and Luansk independent, Putin took several hours to make the decision to accept or reject it. 

If it were not for the US trap thing, would I be for or against this war? Well, the second unease in this is the fact that I doubt it will work, as the US does this type of thing all the time and it always fails. I know the Russian people don't have so much experience with "humanitarian intervention," but as an American I understand and am quite uneasy, even when I know that in this case, the threats are quite real, and well documented, and not at all imagined. Besides, even if it did work, it would be at great cost of human life, something which you are trying to prevent, and the divides within the country would become worse rather than better.

 * Where do I get my information? 

The American and other Western dissidents. Many of them use Western diplomats, military advisors, etc, as a source for information and analysis, as the links I provided do. Often they will cite people who are part of the Western government as part of their analysis. Yes, I use Russian sources, but I don't actually trust them until I have confirmation from Western investigative journalists. I bring this up because in the US anything which contradicts Western sources is referred to as Russian disinformation and I want to remind people that there is more than just the US vs Russia.

[Here are a few of the journalists who resisted Russia-gate: The Grayzone which is Max Blumenthal, Anya Parampil, Ben Norton, and Aaron Maté, if you recognise any of the names, Glenn Greenwald. I believe Mint Press News also has anti-imperialist coverage based on complex in-depth analysis and getting to the root of the issues. Consortium News is another I have seen others use. You don't need to agree with everything they write, but here is an opportunity to get alternative perspectives to what is going on outside of the American propaganda. They don't do headlines or daily updates, however, just interviews and investigative reports.

It would take me a while to find them all and give a good analysis whether or not I trust all of them, but this is a place to start.]

* Why do you still side with Russia? 

First, I am not sure that I do, or at least not completely. Second, most of the arguments I hear supporting the "Chinese" / "Russian" / anti-imperialist positions on what is going on in this situation rely on history, facts, evidence, due process, and equality of peoples, while the American / European / "Ukrainian" positions rely on emotional appeals, accusations, fear, arrogance, ideology, racism and exclusivity. This is, of course, why Russia is loosing the propaganda war. Third, I still view Russia as my country and the Russians as my people, and don't want to see them destroyed or subjugated to the US (again).

Besides, Americans who don't support all the US wars would never put up with what the West is doing to Russia, whether it is putting US weapons on the Russian border (see the Cuban Missile Crisis), encouraging anti-Russian thought within neighbouring countries (with discrimination against their Russian population and support for Nazi brigades), fostering and supporting dissent within Russia (which is what the Russia-gate conspiracy theory was about), stealing the national wealth of Russia and wealthy individuals (the second point Russians don't care about, but America and many Americans hate), characterising Russians as inherently evil, attempting to cut Russia off from the global economy, denying or re-writing Russian culture (including their victory over the Nazis with great cost to them), preventing Russian athletes from participating in international sports, etc.

 * Why do you want to leave the West? 

I oppose the US on two points. 

The first is not political at all. I have always felt uncomfortable in American culture and society. When I realised there are alternatives that make me feel more comfortable, I started to seek them out. Russian culture is what made me comfortable.

The second involves American imperialism. Look, various people have various views on various topics for their own reasons, and I will never agree on everything, but the US has somehow convinced their people and many others in the rest of the world that they are somehow superior. I freed myself from the ideology involved in constructing this conception and don't want it forced on me again. Even if Russia were as propaganda-prone as the US, (an argument which I don't even want to get into due to the complexity of the situation,) it is irrelevant if I can talk to people and not feel forced into an ideology I broke free from.

 * Why Russia? Have you looked into other countries?

I would like to point out that once I form a connection, I am not going to discard it because it is "politically expedient." I want to live my life and be a person, not just do things so that I will be "safe." I want to be who I am, not who you think I should be. 

Besides, as far as I can tell, Russians are Asian in just the right way for me while still being European in all the important ways. There are more complications to this, but I know it is a good fit culturally, whatever their current government and whatever my differences in thought.

And yes, I have looked into other countries. And there others which are comfortable for me, but I don't have quite the same emotional bond. With Russia, I can be comfortable even when the system sucks or the country is under attack, and I want to learn the language and history, which is a level of bond beyond just "comfortable."