Ukraine (Mod Note & Threadbanned Users in OP)

Hitler viewed a lot of people as inferior. The level of destruction and casualties was largely down to scorched earth tactics and the fact that they had lost most of their own generals to Stalin's paranoia.

Russia has invaded places a lot of times in that time period and has heavily involved itself.

However certainly over the last century and a bit they have tended to suffer much worse than outside observers would expect prior to the war (ww1, Japan, Finland, Ukraine...) generally because internal politics have prevented competent military leadership over that period.

A new country? An invader decides that chunks of another country belongs to him and that is the signal that these regions should be hived off? There has never, repeat NEVER, been an indication of any overwhelming pro-Russian sentiment in Kherson or Zapororoyzhe provinces. But that's not what you meant at all, what you meant was "Give Russia what it wants".

As for these "heinous acts", a UN investigation found that the majority of the deaths in the Donbass were those of combatants and responsibility for the deaths of non-combatants was equally divided between Ukrainians and Russians/separatists.

There is an air of desperation coming from the US/EU/NATO side. Ukraine appears to be losing this war and, if that's the case, Biden will either have to resign or lose the 2024 presidential election (most likely to Trump). My guess is that if Ukraine lose he'll announce he won't stand for re-election in 2024 citing his age as the reason. The consequences across the EU are already being felt. Politicians in EU countries who have signed up lock, stock and barrel to US hegemony are losing power and are being replaced by those demanding policies not too dissimilar to what Orban is implementing in Hungary. Uncontrolled immigration (at the behest of the US) is putting the very existence of the EU at stake and we are four years away from Le Pen as president of France with the AfD making significant gains in the 2025 German election.

NATO are even distancing themselves from Zelensky and Ukraine's wish to become immediate NATO members. No one even talks in terms of Ukraine becoming an EU member anymore.

I takes a special kind of moral and intellectual bankruptcy to read a report which says the vast majority of abuse is committed by Russian forces and try to spin it as both sides.

Russia commits thousands daily yet somehow morally it is all balanced out by far fewer on the Ukrainian side. Russia commits them as a deliberate act of strategy and terrorism.

Such a proposition gives succor and carte blanche for Russia to commit more war crimes. Abuse more children. Kill more children. Maim more innocents.

In case you missed it, to make a point, the head of Putin's mercenary army went from Ukraine to within the outskirts of Moscow in less than 24 hours, casually shooting down a dozen pilots on the way. The Russians were digging the roads in an attempt to stop him, presidential planes and jets were flying out of Moscow to St Petersburg, like rats off a sinking ship.

Russian conscripts, prisoners and soldiers are bribing their commanders for leave, making videos pleading for ammunition, commanders and even leadership stating they are having supply issues with, among many things, artillery and artillery shells - for an artillery based army. Russia's navy is afraid to sail against Ukraine, a country with virtually no navy. The much smaller Ukrainian air-force incredibly hasn't been destroyed yet, on the contrary, it's getting larger. It's now believed Ukraine has more functional main battle tanks than Russia, and is getting more. In fact, it's getting more of pretty much everything, including longer range missiles. From it's partners, aka the civilized world, which has fairly deep pockets. Conversely Russia, which has a GDP the size of Italy's, is receiving help from such economic powerhouses as.. North Korea and Iran

It's no picnic for Ukraine and it's likely going to still be a long drawn out conflict (if the Russian military doesn't actually implode from it's own issues first) but according to your personal opinion, Russia is about to prevail in Ukraine, okay, how?

With Hitler's army turning around, saying "To hell with that, I've other things to be doing" and marching away? Right?

There wouldn't have been an invasion had the west and Ukraine lived up to the Minsk Agreements agreed with Russia in 2015. If the Ukrainians want to fight a US/NATO provoked war (started by Russia) then that's their choice as the west will fight until the last Ukrainian soldier.

For the past twenty years countries in the Middle East, Northern Africa & Europe (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine...) have either had their countries attacked and/or democratically elected governments removed (happened in Ukraine). This has led to the displacement of literally millions of people from those countries seeking legitimate refuge in the EU. 1.1 million Syrians literally entered Germany overnight under Merkel. Given the fact that one major country has already left the EU using immigration at the heart of its reason it is not impossible to imagine another leaving in 5 or 10 years time. One year ago I would have thought it madness. Not anymore - as the leadership of EU countries is changing rapidly with the far right rising.

This is not normal. The performance of the far right VOX party in Spain (the most Eurosceptic party in Spain & formed just ten years ago) in the general election will be one to watch next week. A recent poll in Germany has Alternative für Deutschland second with the general election two years away. In Sweden the Christian Democrats are in coalition government under a mandate to reduce the number of refugees allowed into Sweden by 70% with some calling for repatriation of existing refugees. Italy has a far right headed government and Le Pen looks in pole position to become the next president of France in 2027. . . and I haven't mentioned the governments of Hungary or Poland yet. Ironically brexit, being such an unmitigated economic disaster, has led to less calls from some of these parties to tone down their past desire to leave the EU.....but that could change.

It is nearly the 100th anniversary of the Munich Beer Hall putsch which led to Hitler's imprisonment in 1924. Less than nine years later he was Chancellor of Germany. Sadly this is not conspiracy but fact.

@Peter Flynt

There wouldn't have been an invasion had the west and Ukraine lived up to the Minsk Agreements agreed with Russia in 2015. If the Ukrainians want to fight a US/NATO provoked war (started by Russia) then that's their choice as the west will fight until the last Ukrainian soldier.

What part of the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 did the west not live up to, Russian forces repeatedly broke the cease Fires and kept trying to grab more land for themselves, including at Mariupol and donesk airport, there was no war in Ukraine until Russia invaded 9 years ago,

Anything else is parroting Russian propaganda

Easy there was a UN report post 2014 and guess what the absolutely majority of cases of war crimes and ceasefire breaches came from Russian forces

So these areas are occupied illegally by Russian forces and Russian forces are shooting at Ukraine and Ukrainians are returning fire ,

That's not a war crime

Apparently in the worldview of the pro-Russian propagandists, illegally invading another country and killing its civilians isn't a war crime.

But defending your own country against that invasion is.

Twenty years ago some posters on here would have supported the war in Iraq and telling everyone WMD are just about to be discovered.....Heck you could even go back to Vietnam.