I mostly leave those threads alone. There's a lot of conflict and no chance for resolution. Add in the fact that there are paid propagandists populating those threads, and there really is no upside in participating.
marcusmaximus is an interesting case study. It's quite obvious he's a paid propagandist who (used to) barely put any thought whatsoever in his posts. He'd bang out these cliches such as "What ____ doink?", "Tell your Putin ______", "Kiev in 3 days, bring your parade uniforms", and "____ stronk like bull.".
But, upon calling him out on that, I've noticed he actually puts a little effort into his posts now, and even posts articles about things other than Ukraine. Surprisingly, he and I actually got into a pretty good exchange once. I guess I can tolerate a propagandist who brings something other than pure propaganda to the forum.
But as far as going on those Uke/Russia threads? I see no point.
They can be fun to play with for a minute. It’s like pushing a button. Saying something along the lines of, “I am opposed to my tax dollars being sent unaudited to a known money laundering operation” causes them to start barking and screeching, “Putin puffer!” “Pro Russian!” “Communist!” “Bolshevik!” and other such nonsense. It really *is* amusing. Downright Pavlovian.
They become boring and repetitive pretty quickly and that’s when I dismiss them by allowing them the last word.
But they are amusing for brief interludes.
And AMorePerfectUnion has a Zeeper Follies ping list with hilarious graphics.
The funniest part is that zeepers don’t know that they’re the entertainment.