I find it very weird that the West demands that everyone be able to vote and promotes "Democracy" all over the world, but when an ethnic group or nation holds a vote to decide something that they don't like, they spazz and label it "invalid". Ok. Are you sure, though? Are you sure? Because you're also telling me that Biden won the last election. It seems premature to be absolutely sure that these people don't want to be part of Russia. Many of them are, after all, ethnic Russians.

Even if you feel that these votes and the referendums are a total sham, what matters is that Russia sees it as valid. Attack or attempt to re-take these states, and get nuked. We better take Putin seriously. Because antagonizing him, demonizing him, sanctioning him, and refusing to work with him on anything hasn't gone well for anyone.

The complete lack and essential black-out of any ability to understand things from the Russian side has me very unsure of how to approach this war. I'm not saying Putin is a hero, but I'm not sure he's a bad guy, either. He sounds like a strong, patriotic man who cares about Russians. This war, at least from his point of view, was about saving ethnic Russians living in Ukraine from abuse. Those claims have not been very well examined by the Western media. There's no balance.