Dude, it’s nothing to do with you.
We could all just as easily pester the pro Putin lot here (the ones who’re openly jonesing for the annihilation of Ukraine, quite like the sound of Putin’s policies, and really don’t care if Putin starts a third continental war all across Europe so long as the USA doesn’t get dragged into it) what they’re getting up to in St Petersburg.
Because it’s pretty clear they’re shilling for Russia, against America’s best security interests.
There’s no scenario where Putin can invade another country west of Russia and the USA doesn’t get dragged into it by virtue of mutual defense agreements and other treaty obligations going back decades.
You want to cut the spending? Putin needs to be put back in his box BEFORE those treaties can all get revisited.
Before you ask - I do humanitarian work in eastern Europe, but since the invasion of Ukraine I’ve been helping Russians and Ukrainians settle in the UK. There’s always been a community here in my county with Russians and Ukrainians coexisting happily, paying taxes and working hard...but we’ve had over 500 ethnic Russian families flee here to join them.
Ethnic Russians from the Donbas.
Funny. Putin’s logic would suggest that folks like them would’ve fled 200 miles east towards Rostov on Don at any time in the last nine years.
They tell me saw no reason to flee until the SMO. The serious fighting between Russian separatists and Uke ultranationalists pretty much ended five years ago.
And even then as long as they have holes between their butt cheeks, they still won’t submit to proxy rule from Moscow. They’d rather flee West, and start afresh with nothing but the clothes on their back.
And they’re the Russian speaking Ukes that Putin reckoned would be on his side!
You’ve got some anecdotal evidence from other Freepers who reckon that they know ethnic Russian speakers in east Ukraine who wanted annexation. They do exist, but they were a minority within a minority that represented less than 15% of the ethnic Russian population, was comprised mostly of 1st/2nd generation settlers from western Russia, and a high proportion of them are pensioners voting with their pockets.
I'm not going to get into the whole history leading up to the current mess in Ukraine but I do know that it's endlessly complicated and immensely convoluted with plenty of blame to be laid on all parties, including Russia, Ukraine, NATO and the EU. In all fairness, the elephant in the room is the endless provocations, machinations and interferences by a leftist/globalist controlled US government and by individual, wealthy, leftist/globalist individuals, corporations and NGOs. This crap has been going on for a long, long time. Now it has come to a head. Yet, what do we hear from FR Youkazoids? Russsia! Russsia! Ruzzziiiiaaaa!!! As if Putin's a new Hitler whose goal is world conquest. Childish and ignorant beyond belief.
I am sick of my government creating mayhem and death around the world. I am sick of it using ordinary American's money to do that. Vietnam: predicated on a massive lie. End result? Fifty thousand dead, young Americans and tens of thousands more wounded, both physically and mentally, a communist-affected genocide and an embarrassing politically-affected retreat by US forces, even while they were on the cusp of victory, plus billions of torched dollars. Iraq: predicated on either bad info or a big lie: End result: one hundred thousand dead Iraqis, thousands of dead and maimed Americans and billions of US taxpayers' dollars torched. What was gained there? Oil? Nope. Respect? Nope. Afghanistan: Well, I don't have to point out what was "accomplished" there and how that one ended. . .
Russia and Ukraine have been going at it for decades. Let 'em have at it. Let them settle it between themselves. No more of this crap where a small handful of naive or nefarious or greedy or warmongering individuals send American dollars down the toilet and good people to their deaths.