Hey, just made an account after lurking here for like a year or so. Anyway, I just got out of a rather exhausting conversation with some friends where the topic of Ukraine came up and I tried my best to give a reasonable overview of why people in Crimea/DPR/LPR would support joining Russia, complete with several sources on the brutality of the Ukrainian government in the years since Maidan. Almost immidiately I got hit with "Well I have Ukrainian friends who say that Russia is the problem." I've noticed very often that people will trust what they've heard personally from people they know over any evidence you give them. My question is, has anyone found an effective way to get through to people who entirely base their stance on an issue on what the people they know personally have to say? How do you show someone that they need to look beyond what their token friend has to say and actually study the topic themselves?
It's difficult to be sure. As others pointed out, we are predisposed to trust people we personally know more. You can point out things like selection biases and so on, but it only goes so far.
I find I've had better luck discussing the outcomes. Now that the war is lost, it's clear that Ukraine finds itself in a worse position than they would've been if they accepted the deal Russia offered two weeks into the war. And that deal was worse than Ukraine implementing Minsk agreements. So, regardless of what people think of Russia, we have to look at the tangible outcomes for Ukraine which are horrific.
If we accept the liberal premise that Putin is an existential evil bent on dominating Ukraine, their strategy has backfired catastrophically. By pushing Ukraine into a ruinous proxy war instead of accepting negotiated neutrality that was nearly achieved in Istanbul, the West created a demonstrably worse situation for Ukraine.
Ukraine lost over 20% of its population and around 40% of GDP. It is likely to remain a failed state going forward which will make it easier for Russia to dominate politically. On the other hand, liberals can be pointed to Warsaw Pact states like Poland, which transitioned to the West after the fall of USSR precisely because they retained intact institutions and populations.
So, if you are a liberal who thinks Ukraine is better off under western sphere of influence, then destruction of Ukraine through war is directly at odds with your stated goals. A functional Ukraine under Russian influence could have pivoted westward over time. Instead, NATO’s maximalism turned Ukraine into a radioactive buffer zone where no EU/NATO membership is possible.
Liberals also claim to prioritize Ukrainian lives, yet their policy has caused at least half a million deaths, over 10 million refugees, and a demographic collapse unseen since WW2. Meanwhile, Russia now controls more Ukrainian land than in 2014, with no peace in sight. How does this help the people of Ukraine?