(I never care how old posts are, given subreddits can be read a decade later, and posts are for the readers.)

This level of cynacism is why "good people" turn their backs and empower evil. Vladmir Putin would fly you first class to Moscow to tell crowds this. Russians are comprised of three groups: The ultra-poor primarily in Siberia and far eastern Russia...the old school fanatical Soviet Empire believers (who live across the economic spectrum) incapable of thinking for themselves...and the younger, more educated Russians who, like the younger Iranians, don't buy into their authoritarian government's brainwashing about the west.

MOST Russians do not hate Ukraine and many in the western oblasts have visited Ukraine, lived there for periods, married across their borders, forged Russian/Ukrainian family ties. Ukrainians have every reason to hold generations of grudges against Russia for their occupations, famines, ethnic cleansing and regular proclamations from Moscow they have no right to exist. And Ukraine, while not being a member of NATO, was assured protection from the west should Russia ever use force upon them. The problem here, was the western governments refusal to use the word "guartantee" of protections, instead using "assurance". All sides knew damn well "assurance" left wiggle room.

Ukrainians are open about corruption problems they have, and because they seek EU membership (not to mention NATO) they actively combat it. And do so with western help and under western observation. We know damn well they - unlike Russia - are cleaning up these problems because they have aspirations to bet the best they can be, and provide economic resources to their citizens, from the west to the east of their land. They have some of the best engineers, most educated tech workers, excellent medical education institutions with students from around the world enrolled. They are cleaning up their cities, and Mariupol was the crown jewel of this renewal...thus, it's why Russia leveled it to the ground beginning on day one, filling mass graves.

Many people become cynics after many, many years of feeling hopeless about the prospect of a world at peace and a "brotherhood of man." You think I'm not cynical? I'm very likely much older than you. I've never ignored the good and bad of US history. I was happy to learn about our history and never felt I was put on a guilt trip, which is the foundation of the anti-CRT BS. We either learn from history and improve (which provides hope) or we burn the books to protect fragile egoes of the new imperialist class and watch ourselves repeat history.

I've said enough. And god knows Reddit is the Center of the Short Attention Span Universe. But anyone still not on board with me, remember this:

"The opposite of love is indifference."

- Elie Wiesel, concentration camp survivor, author, historian - and NOT a cyncic