Ukraine and its supporters are the very embodiment of everything that is wrong with neo-liberalism today, and Russia is the only one who is combating that, with actual force.

There was a CIA-funded coup in Ukraine in 2014 (Euromaidan https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_coup_d%27etat), after which a Banderite president, Porochenko, got into power.

Bandera was a Ukrainian fascist who gleefully collaborated with the Nazis during WW2 (https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Organization_of_Ukrainian_Nationalists).

Because of their shared past inside the USSR, Ukraine and Russia's borders and history got mingled, and Krushchev gave Ukraine the region of Crimea in 1954. The people in the Donbass region, to this day, are ethnically Russians but with a Ukrainian nationality.

Things worked out fine until the Banderites started making a comeback. When Porochenko assumed the "presidency" of this fine "democracy", he start promoting Ukrainian nationalism and indeed exceptionalism. Russian was no longer considered an official language and the people in the Donbass slowly were becoming second class citizens.

Moreover, a worrying turn of events was that Ukraine, since 2014, was rapidly rehabilitating their Nazi past with pride. New Bandera statues were being put up. This map gives an interesting outlook on the divide Ukraine was facing as an "independent" state:

2014 is also around the time the Azov Battalion was formed (https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion), named after either the town of Azov, in the Donetsk Oblast -- the same one that seceded from Ukraine -- or the neighbouring sea. Their goal was to terrorise the people living in the Donbass with full government support. I think it's not hyperbole to say they were trying to ethnically cleanse their ethnic Russian minority who, let's remember, were Ukrainian citizens.

This eventually led to a civil war that has been raging since 2014 and is still going on, except Russia is now involved directly.

The first kickoff that got Russia involved was the attacks on Crimea, which like I said belonged to Russia before Krushchev the revisionist gave it to Ukraine. So Russia moved their troops in (I'm iffy on the details of when and why exactly), a referendum was eventually held, and Crimea decided to join the RF.

Russia under Putin of course considers the people of the Donbass and Crimea as Russians, and I personally think there is merit to the claim that Putin wants to repatriate Russian regions into the RF. As for the Donbass, the "People's republic" (mostly in name, they weren't really socialist) proclaimed themselves in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, which Russia recognized. Thus the RF became involved in this civil war originally as more of a passive supporter, promoting a dialogue and then, when the agreements were achieved, soldiers from the RF were sent to the Donbass to set up checkpoints and prevent more incursions into the oblast, notably from Azov.

This dialogue led to the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements. It first led to Minsk I which essentially said stop shelling the Donbass and let them live in peace as Ukrainian-Russians (and when I say shelling, I mean it: they were using mortars and other military weapons on civilians in the Donbass). Ukraine signed the agreement and then promptly went back to shelling their own citizens.

So Minsk II was signed and again Ukraine ignored it and continued terrorizing their people.

Eventually, Zelensky was elected in 2019 and... nobody in Ukraine seemed to care. There's a video, if I can find it, floating around the Internet of Zelensky meeting with his troops at the frontline in 2019 or 2020 and telling them to stop attacking the Donbass and the soldier he's talking to just doesn't give a shit. This guy has no authority whatsoever, just because there was an election after the coup doesn't make Zelensky an actual authority figure.

From what I understand Zelensky takes his orders from the Banderites running the country currently, and the Banderites take their orders from NATO.

So the shelling continued, the people in the Donbass were still fighting, Russia was at a stalemate but was clear in not getting involved directly for the Donbass. Meanwhile in the western media the Banderite legacy and revival of Ukraine was completely ignored as they focused on running yellow journalism "trust me bro Putin is totally going to invade Ukraine tomorrow trust me" articles year after year between 2014-2022.

Except suddenly in 2021 Ukraine started talking about joining NATO. And Russia is not stupid: if randos like us on the Internet can see the writing on the wall, Russia can see it too. NATO gave their promise to Gorbachev, the traitor to socialism, that they would not expand eastward. That was in the 90s. Since then, they did expand towards Russia.

And that was pretty much the red line for Russia who was slowly being surrounded by NATO (https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Treaty_Organization). Let's remember that while NATO claims to be a "defensive alliance", they invaded Iraq (during the Kuwait war) and Afghanistan, two countries who did not attack a member state. Russia had also been fighting against NATO for example in Syria, and IIRC also deployed troops to some South American countries (including Venezuela) to prevent US regime change.

Does Putin want Russia to be imperialist? Probably. I mean, once capitalism is sufficiently developed in Russia, they'll have to. Putin at least has shown he has no plans to become a comprador (despite being courted as such before he was elected). But they're not there yet. At this time, I really don't see the arguments that say Russia is imperialist. Their GPD is about the same as that of the Low Countries combined and capitalism is not sufficiently developed in post-Soviet Russia to start exporting capital and forcibly opening new markets for themselves. They're barely back to their pre-illegal dissolution outputs.

With that said we can't ignore the Donbass is a very resource-rich region. Historically, Donbass was the producer of steel for the Soviet Union (if you've heard of the "Azovstal" battle in Mariupol, it literally means Azov steel, Azov being the neighbouring sea).

And now, it's come out that NATO had 0 intention of letting Ukraine join and announced membership just to provoke Russia, Zelensky is doing more unhinged shit by the day (here's the war crimes he committed just in the early months of the war: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/137899), and Merkel recently admitted Minsk I and II were only negotiated to gain some time for NATO to train Ukraine.

With this context in mind, I don't see how we can analyse this war any differently than Russia defending itself against NATO. I echo was some communist parties have said, that it's regrettable these once fraternal people united under a socialist government are now at war against each other. We can blame NATO for that, but I also can't ignore the Banderite revival in Ukraine that was their own doing, and I'm not going to cry for dead Nazis.

As for annexation, there is no certainty this is going to happen. When the war began, Russia announced their goals clearly: liberate the Donbass region, safeguard Crimea (Ukraine cut off the water supply, using the dams on the Dniepr -- one of which was blown up last night), and basically push NATO back, i.e. make Ukraine sign a treaty that they will not join NATO. But the war has evolved so much from the early days, like the Ukrainian Army now is mostly NATO soldiers and the US keeps telling Zelensky not to sign a peace treaty (and like a good little dog, he obeys). This thing could have been over in the first 3 months if Ukraine had been willing to negotiate, but they don't. At every turn they find new ways to fuck up, and at this point what can Russia do but keep pushing forward until Ukraine has no choice but to accept peace? Anything can happen at this point as to the fate of Ukraine.

Russia are not the aggressors, NATO and its Nazi proxies are. Russia did not invade Ukraine, NATO did in 2014 when it overthrew the legitimate government of Ukraine and installed a bunch of criminal fascist thugs into power causing a civil war to break out when eastern Ukrainians who were opposed to the Maidan coup stood up to defend their homes and their families. Russia tried everything it could to resolve the situation diplomatically for eight years while NATO continued to arm the Nazis in preparation for war with Russia. Eventually Russia was left no choice but to intervene to protect the Donbass republics from the genocidal Kiev regime when it became clear that the proxy army that NATO had built was about to launch an all out attack on the Donbass with the intent to commit a bloodbath and ethnic cleansing in the style of what NATO helped do to Serbian Krajina in 1995.

There have been many debates and discussions on this and in this case searching 'Russia' and reading through those discussions may help. Though do not read this as discouragement from asking questions. It is, understandably, a hot topic worthy of elaboration and there are plenty of people here that will be interested in answering.

Here is my take:

Russia as a nation has a class character that is more easily compared to that of developing countries than that of a core country.

The BRICS countries, especially recently, have gained steam due to the reelection of Lula in Brazil. But also because the war, and subsequent sanctions, many countries are compelled to build an alternative to the global finacial order, aka white supremacist or "western" imperialism, giving the BRICS more vigor and more direction. Russia's role in this project is crucial. Russia may be viewed as the aggressor if you begin the story 1.5-2 years ago and ignore Donbas, but if you go back further it is not difficult to make the case this conflict began in 2014 during the coup.

The war is obviously disturbing, a major threat to global stability. It has been incredibly violent and destructive in many different ways. The war increases risk of nuclear attack, creates the surge of weapons into the region which is ending up with reactionaries committing atrocities in the Donbas region, to organized criminals and even to places much further away. Sanctions and other factors surrounding the war have caused rising energy prices and increased inflation that has hurt many countries in the global south. This is affecting people subsisting on the countryside already suffering from drought and people toiling in the metro. There is too much pressure on the masses. The war must end.

The problem is that Russia is not the only party involved and NATO will need to make concrete efforts to prove they will be able to build peace as much as Russia and Ukraine. Unfortunately, that has not played out and remains unlikely. So here we are.

I would like to add that the word "support" is commonly used in this discussion but it is not an especially useful word and by my observation is a huge source of confusion to the critics of my position and to our communities position. I do not send money to Russia. I do not send weapons or material aid. I am not a Russian citizen and thus have not voted for Putin and do not serve in the military or government. Nor have I contributed to government policy, war policy, or on the ground support as an independent contractor. Nor do I "root" for Russia as if it is a sports team or a dance contestant. Frankly, I don't feel obligated to do so either. I have my own problems to attend to.

However, what I am in favor of is the greater project that Russia is part of which is creating a needed alternative for much of the world. I think the global masses will benifit from this process of history but will suffer if it is stopped. The threat of the this development to the imperial core is the primary reason Russia is demonized for its invasion. If they were concerned about the humanitarian crisis they would act differently and pull their weight in ending it, but they hardly even admit their role.