And yet invading and annexing neighbouring countries is still frowned upon.

The US has invaded dozens of countries and that's fine, right? Its always self defence, even when the country is tiny and helpless like Haiti, or on the opposite side of the world. They just don't annex them, they merely install pliant, obedient vassal governments, or smash the country into collapse and then walk away from the chaos. When America says they have to invade because "they hate our freedoms" we have to believe them. Right?

Not one single country the US has invaded since WW2 has threatened the US, or has been in a position to threaten the US. Whereas Ukraine is literally on Russia's doorstep and NATO membership is a genuine threat. Over the last few centuries, Russia has suffered at least five existential threats by military invasion that threatened their very existence, and in all five cases the invasion route was through Ukraine: Sweden, Poland, France and Germany twice.

The most recent time, still in living memory, was an attempted war of annihilation that saw 9-10 million Soviets (mostly Russians) outright murdered in cold blood, over and above the ordinary casualties of war.

When President Obama said that Ukraine was of critical importance to the security and safety of Russia, and of no importance at all to the US, he wasn't mistaken.

If NATO was genuinely a peaceful defensive alliance, they could have easily offered defence guarantees to Ukraine without NATO membership, like Finland had.

Since the fall of the USSR, NATO and especially the US have proven themselves to be untrustworthy, duplicitous and aggressive. There is absolutely no doubt at all that they threaten the existence of Russia, and their moves towards Ukraine are part of that threat. Ukraine's nazis are just a tool for America to use to push Ukraine further out of the Russian sphere of influence and to be a catspaw for NATO.

The people of south and east Ukraine are ethnically and culturally Russian. Their west Ukrainian government wants them dead or suppressed and has weaponized the neo-nazi paramilitaries against them since the 2014 coup. They want out of Ukraine and into Russia.

Self-determination is supposed to be a universal human right, except when it goes against American interests, right?

Neither is using neo-nazis like the Rusich Group.

Russia uses Wagner, including Rusich, in combat against enemy soldiers, and that's bad.

But it's fine when Ukraine use Azov, Aidar, Right-Sector, Svoboda etc against civilians.

Ukraine just targeted civilians again, in an attempt to blow up the bridge to Crimea, which has zero military value, and critically injured a 14 year old girl and killed both her parents, and that's not terrorism at all 🙄

Wikipedia is colonised by US aligned intelligence agencies, so we have to take their page on Rusich with more than a generous heaping of salt. But it does seem that they are nasty characters and in a perfect world they would be suppressed. War crimes are war crimes whoever does them.

But in Russia, far-right groups are generally suppressed, not encouraged. Look at the Wikipedia page on neo-Nazis in Russia and seen how many of the groups are described using the word "was" rather than "is". Rusich escapes because they are useful and stay out of politics. We don't live in a perfect world, and the far-right exists in every country. I am sure you will find plenty of Aryan Brotherhood folks in the US military too.

Zelenskyy's margin was much greater than Obama's.

Yes. Zelensky was a popular TV celebrity and he tuned into the ordinary Ukrainian's disgust against the oligarchs and their neo-Nazis and their desire to end the civil war. I'm not surprised that many Ukrainians voted for him. 45% of the eligible voting population voting for a comedian tells us a lot about both the desperation of Ukrainians to end the civil war and their gullibility to think that a comedian with no political experience could do it.

Shame that he turned out to be the biggest and most corrupt crook of all, a protégé of the oligarch funding Azov, a totally ineffective president, completely unable to rein in the neo-Nazis, and an easy mark to NATO.

I actually feel sorry for the man. He probably did have good intentions in 2019, but as soon as Azov threatened him, his complete lack of backbone and moral fibre came out. But then I remember that he's a corrupt oligarch who has stolen billions, so fuck him.

But again, none of this has any bearing on the existence of a large and influential neo-nazi far-right in Ukraine. You're just white-washing them.

You've got a weak definition of "Jew-hater" if at least 40% of them, and likely much more, voted for a Jew than for Poroshenko.

Its not my definition, its the ADL's. And yes, I dare say that they're using sensationalist language. Not every person who thinks Jews have too much power is a jew-hating Nazi who wants them dead.

I don't see how you get "at least 40%" there. Suppose the ADL is correct and not sensationalising even a bit, and 46% of Ukrainians in 2019 actually hated Jews with a passion and wanted to bring back the gas chambers.

But 55% of Ukrainians either voted for Poroshenko or didn't vote at all. There is no need to imagine that even one single "jew hater" voted for Zelensky if you think that it is impossible for people who are prejudiced against jews to vote for a jew as the least worst option.