Every recrimination has an equal and opposite recrimination. In the end, we are where we are and every country chooses how to play their own hand by themselves.

Russian leadership knew what they were doing when they attacked a foreign sovereign country in an act overt aggression.

I’m sure there are plenty of rationalizations they tell themselves, but it’s not the US that “started this” in any meaningful way.

You will find that the actual cause for the dead, injured, and displaced, is that Russia invaded Ukraine.

The simplest fix would be for the Russians to go home.

The more permanent fix would be for the Russians to go home, and have Vladimir Putin accidentally fall out of a window very high up. That would be reasonable, given how many men he basically threw into a meat grinder.

You’d think the West would have taken it seriously after Crimea was annexed. But even after losing most of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, there are still imperial core labor aristocrat clowns like you, still failing to read the room.

Behold the power of western intellect.

Do you understand how WWI became a world war? When two countries had a conflict between them, a network of alliances caused others countries to become parties to the conflict. That's exactly what's happening here.

The US, through NATO, was deploying lethal capabilities in Ukraine. Russia determined that this was strategically threatening its security, a position that it has held for 30 years and has been acknowledged by US leaders, diplomats, and generals, as well as world leaders and even the leaders of NATO. Russia launched a conflict with Ukraine, and Ukraine only, in order to address its security concern.

If the USA enters the war, unprovoked by Russia, then it would be the USA starting WW3, just like in WW1 a conflict between two countries expanded to include uninvolved parties when they made themselves involved. The problem with the ATACMS is that it requires US/NATO to operate. Within the borders of Ukraine, that means that US forces are killing Russian soldiers in Ukranian territory. While problematic, Russia has only escalated its rhetoric based on this involvement. However, if US/NATO troops were to use ATACMS to strike Russian targets on Russian territory, that would be an act of war against Russia which would require a response. In this way, the US would expanding the war beyond the conflict of Ukraine and Russia to now be Ukraine, Russia, and the US - an escalation to world war.

I doubt Russia will actually use nukes, what with MAD and all.

Then again, people said the same thing about the invasion. Russia doesn't have a no-first-use nuclear weapons policy like the USSR did, so they could use them if they deem the country to be under existential threat.

This is clearly a response to the US allowing strikes inside Russia.

Interesting timing to do that when Ukraine, Germany and Russia have been gearing up to negotiate an end to the war next year. Wonder if this is to give the west more leverage in the negotiations or to escalate to give the republican admin next year a tougher time.