It's just so awful. I wish this never happened.

I hope the same, lil bro. Though it does worry me that it might turn into one...

That said though: Many people theorise that Russia would lose a 3rd world war, because of the state of their equipment and the army themselves. If it was all in tip-top condition Ukraine would have fallen last month and Russia would have been so much bigger a threat. But right now it seems that Putin can only do threats. I mean: Just look at the difference between what happened during WW2 & the cold war, and how little progress Russia has made in 2 months. It's staggering how bad this lil war has gone for Russia. The whole world hates Russia, the war against Ukraine is going bad for them. The people in Russia hate their government even more. I can definitely see that in the near future Putin could be deposed and a new president will be stated. Though it does seem like Russia might become a MUCH bigger threat after that though as the new Russian president might make BIG changes that will make Russia a true global super power once more...

Don't wanna sound like "An orc" but I have to debunk few things here as I'm Russian myself.
1)While yes, Russia didn't made that much of a progress in the conflict, there is several reasons to that, and state of equipment is not one of them, equipment of Russian Army is in very good shape and form. Next, is the civilians. If Russia really wanted to just speedrun it, cities would be carpet bombed, blased by ballistic missiles, burnt to the ground, etc. And yes, that would mean disposing of civilans as well. I don't see this happening, meaning that civilian lives do matter then, and it's being sort of a hinder for progress, as Russia is trying to minimize damages to civilan infrastructure, while Ukraine using it to prevent being bruhed by arty (Before you try to counter this with "Russia is bombing cities tho", it does because Ukraine puts their arty and shit there, near civilians. Brightest example is Kiev, that one mall that had missile launching trucks hidden in it's underground parking lot, in which they were going after quickly firing shots, to hide. Russia HAD to demolish mall entirely to stop this.)
2) Whole world hates Russia? I disagree. Mostly who hates Russia is EU, USA and NATO block, along with few other countries that have government loyal to Washington. Other countries either remain neutral or supportive of Russia.
3) Russians hate government? 50/50. While inner policy of our govenment is thing that burns asses indeed, current operation actually raised Putin's raiting. It's just that shitload of "Inteligency" and actors that left Russia are yelling the loudest. But I highly doubt any sort of coup will occur in near future. Not to mention, there is nobody to put INSTEAD of Putin. Literally. And no, do not suggest Navalny, he is a moron. Literally a moron, considering how he was calling Russians "Slaves, dirt," etc, it's highly unlikely he will have any support (Which he never had in first place tbh.)

As for my personal opinion on situation, I would say this:
If Russia got plans to capture Ukraine - it is doing poorly
If Russia got plans on helping out Donbass and Lugansk - It's going well, since almost entirety of Donbass is secured, and there is currently major battles going on in last parts under Ukraine's control.
Do I support the operation? Yes I do, considering what sorts of shit were happening with Donbass starting from 2014, and how almost EVERYONE ignored it, this shit was about to happen sooner or later.
That does not mean that I think that all Ukrainians deserved it, no. There are lots of good people either, and innocent people dying, that is truth. But this is military conflict, people WILL die in those, that's the truth of life. But Ukraine had it coming with shit their government was pulling on constant basis (Ignoring Minsk's negotiations and treaties, exiting the pact about nuclear weaponry and openly saying that Ukraine will become nuclear country (Considering amount of atomic stations, they could've easily build a "dirty bomb", out of depleted reactor fuel. Which makes them a legitimate threat).

I guess, i was debunked. Somewhat at least. Thanks for giving an insider point of view though. =3 👍

But honestly, i don’t think an “invasion” of Ukraine was the best way push change in various Ukrainian regions. The Russian government could have pushed more to have change happen in Ukraine (i do not remember what Russia has done in that case though. But there should have still been more peaceful or non-violent ways to solve this), heck they could’ve made it public. There are many~ people on Social media nowadays that would make controversies go global. If they made the corruption in Ukraine a social media bomb, than things would have looked a LOT different. Than Ukraine would’ve looked like the bad guys and Russian government the good guys.

Also: We heard many claims made by Putin about Ukraine & their president. And even though government corruption was known, many remarks of Putin have not been verified by actual evidence. At least as far as we “European citizens that have no idea of what was going on in Ukraine before this war” know off.

And also: Yes, not the “whole world hates Russia”. I was talking hyperbolically. I mean: A lot of us hate the Russian government not the Russian people at all. Heck, we sympathise with the normal Russian people because of the sanctions causing all of you harm… We are just powerless to do anything about it tho... ~.=.~;
And yes: Not all Russian people are against the war nor against the government. ^^;

But still, a war is never the answer to a problem like this. There were other methods that could have been done and so many more innocent lives could have been prevented from dying…

If I'm being honest, I think that current conflict is a result of failed diplomacy. Since it was going on for 8 years, 2 Minsk negotiations (In which first ones were de-facto ignored by Poroshenko, even tho he said otherwise, and things calmed down at some degree, and second Minsk got entirely thrown out of window by Zelenskiy, who openly said that Ukraine will not abide by those). So only option for DNR and LNR was to call for Russia to acknovledge them and help them out. Also I recall Poroshenko's speech about people of DNR and LNR, calling them "terrorists" (Including civilans) and saying, quote "Our children will go to school, their will be sitting in basements!"

Russia could attempt to, quote on quote "Call Ukraine out and expose them" but, let's be totally honest, who would've cared? USA got the hegemony on world as of right now, so any statements of Russia would be either ignored entirely or immediately claimed as false. Example being current conflict even, when anything Russia says is either totally ignored or "Meh" opinion, and when anything comes up that accuses Russia, it's immediately in headlines everywhere in US and EU. It is an info war that Russia is losing badly (And a lot of Russians do agree with that one, our propagandists are doing piss poor job)
TLDR: Even if Russia tried to expose Ukraine (Which it did, after Odessa massacre happened, where nationalists burned alot of people in House of Workers Unions, because those people were hostile about Euromaidan (Coup, staged in 2013-2014, after which Poroshenko came in power), nobody would've listened, or it would be shown from twisted point of view to shift the narrative.

So, yeah. It was only logical whole situation would've come to this at some point. But in my opinion, there would be 1 of 2 paths that could arise here.
1) Current path: Russia launches military operation against Ukraine to destroy it's military power and industry and get rid of potential hostile (Considering political talks of Ukraine for last 8 years, they were openly hostile to Russia in that regard)
2) Other path: Ukrainians would've make another coup to revert Euromaidan results. That didn't work due of multitude of reasons, one of which: Nationalists that participated in Euromaidan were now legitimate military divisions (Azov as example, having "Black Sun" on their insignia, and their members spotted with several ultra-nationalistic symbols as tattoos)

I see. I did not know that. 🤔

But i think there would’ve been a greater success in the exposure these past years than back in 2013-2014 though. I mean: Social Media has changed a LOT in the past almost decade and i do think it would have had a LOT more traction nowadays than before. Especially if put out there with multiple pieces of evidence that corroborated it all.
I mean: If people can get totally cancelled these days by just 1 wrong lil tweet, who knows what could’ve happened if the Russian government would have exposed Ukraine’s government’s deep corruption and actions.
We can only guess about it, because it did not happen. They took a different path and thinking that things might probably have failed even if they did. But we’d never truly have known how it would’ve ended up.

That said however: War is still not an answer to all this. It even backfired massively on Russia as a whole and caused so much death and destruction already. I mean: It’s not just soldiers that the Russian army is fighting, but civilians too. People who either have nothing to do with it, or are just defending their country from what they see is an invading force that want to strip away their independence and their way of life & their sense of nationalism.
And now the longer this war continues, the worst Russian government looks and the more the Ukrainian government wins. Instead of the atrocities the current Ukrainian government has caused, media now focus on how well it fights back against the Russian army. And how positive it is fir Ukraine for the sitting president to be there.

And whenever the Russian government makes statements, those statements are not given with the evidence that should be shown. Or at least we never get to see that evidence. And even than, those statements keep getting overshadowed by the destruction and death of innocent civilian lives that this war has claimed. And even with all that said: Many people I know say that: no matter the statements nor reasons Russian governments have to start invading Ukraine, there is no reason to go to war and kill innocent people who have nothing to do with whatever the Ukrainian governments were up too. Even if Ukrainian Government was hostile to the Russian Government. War should have bever been the answer to political problems, even if diplomacy has failed. Even if the reasons could have been noble. A war always drags in the people innocent in the conflict and they are always the ones that pay the heaviest & greatest price.

Hard reality of life. Most of us can only sit and wait for it to end. So we shall see what will happen in future. One is certain: Point of no return happened in Feb. World won't be the same anymore, so we can only adapt accordingly.
Although I'm happy we had this discussion, as it's very refreshing to have people that listen and give constructive feedback, over someone who ignores your statements and simply calls you whatever they feel like.

I just hope that things will end up okay everywhere and that it won’t end up going WW3 on us all. Dx

I am happy to have heard the other side of this whole situation. Because of the (as far as I know) the block of news from Russia by non-governmental news sources, we have no real perspective on what this whole situation does to the Russian leiple and the whole Russian side of this whole shitshow. ^^; (I call it a shit show, because it is. It could have been easily prevented if both sides would’ve been more open for diplomacy and especially on Ukraine’s side. As I do believe bearing that Russia was prepared to be accommodating to a certain extend, but that diplomacy failed mostly because Ukraine did not accept ANYTHING. But still, it’s something that should never had happened and yet here we are… >.<; )