A Russian antiwar view on things

I’ve been seeing a lot of people out there justifying or at least trying to explain Putin’s regime change war in Ukraine in terms of geopolitics and “national security.” One big popular argument I’m seeing is that America would never allow a hostile military alliance to extend to a neighboring country like Mexico, so for America to condemn what Putin is doing is hypocritical. There’s a lot of truth to these kinds of arguments, yet a lot of them are annoyingly America-centric and completely ignore Russian views on the conflict.

From a Russian anti-war perspective, this invasion looks very different. This invasion means the total meltdown of living standards, the weaponization and ascendency of the worst, most toxic nationalistic cultural and political currents, and the retrenching of a corrupt, centralized oligarchic state security apparatus. Now there is the very real possibility of a drawn-out conflict and an insurgency, which will lead to instability within Russia, result in a massive crackdown on dissent, and grind through more death and suffering in Ukraine.

And what do the Russians get form this? Other than a buffer region in the event of a possible but extremely unlikely NATO land invasion — an invasion that will almost certainly lead to a transatlantic war, which will draw in the U.S. and likely end in the nuclear annihilation of much of the planet? Other than this remote possibility? Russians don’t get much at all, other than all the shitty things I listed above.

Sure, America’s rabid foreign policy establishment is a big factor here. That goes without saying.