I went over there and saw "batman Trump symbols." I mean the cultism there is getting seriously bad.

Wow, you found one instance that is almost a year old and happened right out the gate of his presidency. Seems to me like a move of good faith diplomacy.

But then you have Trump literally giving Putin praise. So.... Putin's buddy is still Trump.

Lots of people thought I was their buddy when I wanted to sell them something. That's just a background in business. I think it was 2019 when I saw a conference with European leaders and Trump was explaining his sanction reasons. If the EU becomes dependent on Russian energy, they won't have the ability to negotiate if Russia starts trouble.

I thought Putin would just take the east and maybe connect to Crimea. The next 100 paper cuts, easy... but... dang, he got ambitious. Maybe the military aid to the Ukraine pushed the agenda. I've always worried that bringing the Ukraine into NATO could be the start of WWIII. I saw a meme here that said how Trump denied military assistance to Ukraine in order to keep them a soft target for invasion. I'm not "plugged in" anymore, so I can't say that is wrong, but I feel like a western supported Ukraine is too big a threat for Putin to let stand. Maybe Trump denying military aid was the non-aggressive good faith signal that kept Ukraine safe until someone else decided to send them missiles.

Trump is either wrong or lying about Putin handling this offensive well. With all the small arms being issued to civilians and firebomb classes being held in abandoned factories, this could shape up into another Afghanistan. We'll see.

So, Ukraine wants to be Democratic. That is in line with western ideology. Russia doesn't want that. They want the Soviet Union back. Ukraine was part of that Union. However, once the soviet union dissolved, there was some sort of arrangement that stated the countries between EU and Russia could not join NATO, they were a neutral zone as Russia didn't want NATO on their borders. Fine.

There was nothing stipulated about association status or good standing or trade with NATO. If funneling weapons were the issue, then maybe, just maybe, Putin should have worked to improve relations, trade more to Ukraine, entice them to want Russia back.

It doesn't sound like Russia did that. USA in particular saw this as an opportunity and saw it valuable and worthwhile to keep its Democratic Partner, Ukraine, in good standing as well as the other countries that went pro-democracy.

Hearing Republicans support the fall of democracy in a country is just... I don't have words for the level of "shock due to the lack of shock" I have for this position they adopt. It truly baffles me.