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When you live an an echo chamber - you see what you have immersed yourself in. in the US - much of the bluster is pro-Ukrain/anti-Russia. Although what has been labeled as “propaganda” isn’t when it comes to the anti-Russia stuff. Most of the pro-Ukraine promotion has been to make them out to be somewhat more “saintly” than reality. But I also have friends in Ukraine (both American and Ukrainians) and have been there as well - and so I don’t just buy whatever I hear or read. I weigh it with what tools and sources I have available.

But the reality is - Russia has NEVER truly ben an ally. Even in WW2, it was more of a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

The average Ukrainian is not the corrupt nazi that Russia has painted the entire nation. Indeed - Russia’s current war is more like Hitler’s campaign against Europe than any actual moral endeavor (that even some in the US are claiming it to be).

When I was there a few years back - the hate of BOTH Communists (modeled in their minds by Russia) and Nazis. That infamous “Azov Batallion” that has been the poster child for “Nazi Ukraine” isn’t that at all. YEs - there are many Nazi-like folks there- and even nazi symbolism (kind of like still exists in far larger scale in... Germany today). But again - we gauge the world by our own defective standards. The socio/economic/political mechanisms in Ukraine (and generally Eastern Europe) just don’t work as they do here. Azov helped prevent the Russian expansion beyond Crimea in the first go-round that started in 2014. Then became an either-or threat: Either you recognize the battalion of local militia and then put them under national leadership as a Guard unit - and this still have some control... or you reject them - and they become a very real enemy that is completely out of your control.

And that battalion has proven to be vital in keeping the Russian advance from just walking all over Ukraine.