You repeating something doesn’t make it true. Enter “ukraine a nato member in all but name” in DuckDuckGo. The first link is from the Cato Institute, a right wing Washington DC think tank, from BEFORE the war, September 30th 2021:
Lots of people, including you, misrepresent Article 5. Article 5 does not force any NATO member to armed conflict. Each country retains autonomy to decide how to respond to the attack.
Russia actually does not “have a long history” of attacking first. The last full act of aggression (IIRC) was the last Tsar attacking Japan (where Russia lost BADLY). The Soviet Union responded to being attacked, first after the revolution, when the US and others physically invaded the fledgling USSR, and then the Nazis famously attacked coming through…Ukraine! (Other places as well.)
It is questionable who started the Chechnya war. Quite possible it was Russia (with Putin implicated in a false flag operation). It is also possible it was (like Georgia, Syria, Ukraine 2014 and Kazakstan just a few months ago) dissent of a particular group that was supported militarily by the US to try for regime change. Very likely it was a combination of the two. The US tried to split off Chechnya from Russia, and Putin used that opportunity to create a false flag operation and take power in Russia.
The war in Georgia was started by Georgia (goaded by the US, Dick Cheney in particular).
The war in Syria was Russia responding to the call of the Syrian government.
The war in Ukraine has been going on since the coup in 2014. The Donbas wanted to join Russia after the Maidan coup. Russia refused. It was only when in fall 2021/winter 2022 that Ukraine started increased shelling of the Donbas and amassing troops for an invasion to wipe out the ethnic Russians in the Donbas (which is how the US could predict that Russia would invade) that Russia sent in troops to end the war.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, they invoked Article 51 of the UN charter. Whether that justification will be seen as legitimate is something international lawyers will be discussing in the future.
There are no good guys in Ukraine, except for the innocent civilians just trying to live their lives and conscript soldiers on both sides forced to fight. The Ukraine coup government openly embracing Nazis is not good. Russia is not good. NATO is not good. All are willing to kill innocent civilians for some material gain. Who is the least evil from those three? If history is our guide for the last 30 years, and the last 20 when Putin has been in power, then Putin is the “least bad.” That Putin — a brutal dictator who has no problem locking up protestors for years and possibly assassinating unflattering journalists — is the “least bad” in the Ukraine war says how bad the situation there is.
All that being said, trying to paint Putin as an evil demon akin to Hitler won’t look good for you in a few years.
I’m done here. Bye now.
